The Historic District

As with many of the things the POs did to make Beebe look better for showings, I'm starting to see how slap dash the spruce up was.

What worries me in two rooms so far is what I see beneath is shiny paint. (Uh-oh? ) The two rooms I've noticed the shine in so far is the kitchen and the downstairs bath.

A while back, I had posted a picture of what seemed to possibly be an old stove vent hole inside (that was the weird part) one of my cabinets. I had taken another, trying to "catch" the shine of the paint therein, as well as to show some "smokey" hue at the ceiling above, furthering my thought that the stove used to be in that corner.

My fear then, as now, is that paint calcimine? The pic never did catch the shine well except for some small flash reflections you can see under shelves. Still, the wall you see to the right in that cabinet is the same wall where the new For Sale paint is cracking and forming not long for this world chips. I think I noticed the first crack a few weeks ago. It's already spidering.

The issue right now is our kitty's food and water dish is against that wall, and I'm wondering if I should move it before the latest layer of paint just gives up the ghost and the chips start falling. Should I clear out a shelf inside the cabinet where they did not paint over, and try to maybe wash it to see if it acts like I've read calcimine does?

Anyone's would be welcome.

It looks to me like the greasy grimy stuff that gets deposited in kitchens over the years/decades - smoke yes but also the molecules of whatever was in the air as food was cooking. I just remember what an endless chore it was washing out cabinets with hot tsp. It took off the calcimine as well so it would solve that problem as well! Its so worth it to get a good painting surface.

Right - start washing with hot water, if it's calcimine it will all start washing off. If there is paintover calcimine and the paint is coming off, one solution is 1/4" drywall and leave it be, the other is to go nuts washing all you can off and use a good primer for that like Kilz maybe? plaster can take a lot of water if you can control where it's going.
Ive tried both routes, 1/4 inch drywall is fast, but if you want to preserve the plaster and not have drywall it can be a lot of work to wash it all off then tape all the spider cracks. I did one room where I steamed off all the wallpaper, cleaned it right down and used drywall tape soaked in glue to cover all the spider cracks then drywall compound to cover the tape.. less work to use the 1/4" stuff. what I have done is put "green glue" on the backside and screw it to the wall. Its a sound insulation compound. you have to pull any trim so it doesn't get buried. you also need to use box extenders or move the electrical boxes to make them flush if you do a coverup you can leave the calcimine and unstuck paint and all that issue behind never to be seen again.. but some hate drywall. i like using the paper/metal corner bead , it'll fix all those cracked corners and keep them square and neat and it makes drywalling into the corners easier. - depends how fussy you are about preserving plaster and weather you want the corners to be all imperfect as is "normal" with plaster. I like the nice clean corners so I dont; just use the drywall tape, but many just fold their paper tape and use that.
maybe more drywall is extreme for a closet. your choice.. whats there doesn't look so bad actually.

If it's shiny it isn't calcimine. Calcimine is flat, flat, flat! Shiny means oil paint, possibly linseed oil.

Useless trivia: in most European countries oil paint was ever only used on walls as a cheap substitute for tile, i.e. rarely more than the bottom 5 or 6 feet. Everything else was painted flat with very few exceptions. Makes people go "Huh?!?" when they travel to the US and see shiny walls and ceilings for the first time!

PPS: this is true with the exception of the UK and Ireland, possibly also France and Belgium, not really sure about that. It's also not an absolut truth, I've seen the odd kitchen with old-ish eggshell paint in Austria but it's definitely the exception rather than the rule.

It's always to hear Texas's take from a European perspective. this is always interesting !

Phil

phil wrote:It's always to hear Texas's take from a European perspective. this is always interesting !

Phil

Thanks! I'll keep up my "outside perspective posts" unless anyone complains about being bored!

Thanks for the input everyone.

Now that I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, I need to make a huge sign to put over my monitor that says "STOP POSTING ABOUT SO MANY PROJECTS" so maybe I can get at least one done before summer. Then maybe by my birthday I'll manage to have whittled down the current wall list to something manageable to plan and finish.

Texas_Ranger wrote:Thanks! I'll keep up my "outside perspective posts" unless anyone complains about being bored!

Bored? As if!