Renovating a house

Tagaziel

Tagaziel

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Good news everyone! Me and Mary are the proud owners (well, sort of...) of a new flat in Rosdorf, suburbs of Gottingen (Niedersachsen's backwater in other words ;)). It's cheap, it's bright, spacious...

...it also comes with a catch: while we only pay for electricity, gas and water for the next two months, we also have to renovate it ourselves. It's in pretty good shape, nothing a thorough cleaning and a few buckets of paint and plaster can't fix... except for the bedroom and the corridor. The previous owner was a smoker. And, well, she smoked. A lot. For eleven years. The two aforementioned rooms are theoretically white, but the amount of coal, tar and other fun ingredients of cigarette smoke left the walls in a healthy shade of yellow-to-brown. There's also the residual cigarette odor hanging unpleasantly in the air.

So, HMA (Helpful Mutants Allowed), any suggestions or tricks we can employ to make the renovation as painless as possible? The building was built circa 1960 and still uses wallpapers. Should we tear them off and just paint the walls directly (that'd require giving it a completely new lawyer of coating to accept paint)? Tear them off and replace with fresh ones? Do a cosmic dance of revelation in hopes of them suddenly reincarnating as fresh new wallpapers?
 
Pictures would be helpful, so us "prospective renovators" can see what we are dealing with.

For the the grimy walls pure sugar soap (trisodium phosphate) will do the trick, try diluting it first in small bucket of hot water (maybe 100 mils) , but if the stains resist use pure sugar soap on a sponge. A wall steamer will get the wall paper off very easily - are the floors carpeted? It could get wet and messy.
 
What kind of house is the apartment in? How big is it?
I'm not a painter so not much I can say about wallpaper and plastering other than it sucks (have done it a few times though). But I am a carpenter and have been heavily involved in renovating whole houses a few times, an apartment is of course less work, but still DO NOT underestimate the amount of work it is before you start. Don't mean to be pissing on your parade but it's a big chance the work you have to do is worth well more than two months pay. Now show us some pictures.
 
You're not pissing at all. The apartment is overall in good shape - the only problematic rooms are the corridor and the bedroom-to-be (luckily, the former owner kept her habits contained to those two rooms). The rest just need a thorough cleaning and some refreshing with paint.

As said, the building is a multi-family house built in the 1960s (West Germany 1960s, if that helps). The flat itself is about 59 sqm, uses wallpaper for covering. The bathroom is in great shape, tiles are 99% intact (one or two have cracks, but c'est la vie), while the floors are usable (just cleaning).

As for me living in Germany: I moved in March, after five months in Kraków. Maria is writing her doctorate here, and, well, Germany is better.
 
strange many of the polish people I know say that. Well must be true then. But sad isnt it. Polish people are some really though people.
 
The poles invading germany, oh noez!!11 ;P

I say, tear those wallpapers apart and paint it white (or any colour you like) would be the best option. If you just paint over the wallpaper you will still have the cigarette smell in the flat and white painting colour isn't that expensive and can be done more quickly. Plus, new wallpapers are expensive and a bitch to put on the walls if they happen to be high walls.


Also, surprised no one has noticed:

(that'd require giving it a completely new lawyer of coating to accept paint)
Click to expand...

:mrgreen:
 
reminds me when I helped a good friend in his apartment. Boy ... that was a lot of work. he didn't just wanted a new floor, he riped the old one out and used some machines to abrade the floor. Though once you get the hang out of that huge grinding machine (somehow I am thinking about MMOs right now ...) its pretty fun flying around the floor with it. The only problem was that I had to use a gasmask since the floor was covered in some toxic glue.

Funny times indeed.

Tellerschleifer.jpg
 
Tagaziel said:
completely new lawyer of coating
Click to expand...

If a lawyer could lay coatings, how many layers could a lawyer lay?

Congratulations Tag! Nothing like homeownership to make you realize the dire straits of the everyday upward struggle called life :P

As I understand your floors are in a good condition, but what about ceilings? They must've soaked up their fair share of the smoke - perhaps boarding them up with foam tiles is an option, uless you just want to paint them.

I hear they have this sort of rubber-plaster-paint stuff that can create a fairly impermeable coating on the wall, I don't remember the trade name, but it's latex based I think. Could be your last resort after you've ripped off the wallpapers and have no idea what to do next ;)

PS. Glad you like the tiles, though! ;)
 
I read somewhere that vinegar will break down the tar and then you just wipe it away. Maybe diluted 1/2 1/2 in a spray bottle? Anyway I'd rent a steam wallpaper remover, and re-paint it.

Any mould on the walls?

I'm also a carpenter. Just not a very good one when it comes to renovations. Give me new construction or give me death!
 
That Was Then, This Is Now

That Was Then, This Is Now




This morning I could not spell carp .... ;)



Limited experience with renovating 1960's wall papered walls.

They referred to the older paper pastes as being clay based, and too much stayed on the wall after the paper was pealed.

Some papers took a lot of work even after a detergent like spray softened the glue.

Whether you repaper or paint, you will have to redo that wall surface to a smooth enough finish to suit you and yours.

Textured ceilings are one old aesthetic, but textured walls, why risk the abrasions.


Maybe can scrape all that old glue off, and sand off the last with a powered dry wall sander.


Even if you plan on using a skim coat to level out a scabby texture, or undulating plastering / dry wall, DO NOT skip a seal coat as primer, got to seal that old glue.


Sealers are latex or alcohol based. Alcohol based are called white shellac. If you use a white shellac to prep a wall for a dry wall like skim coat, wear a respirator.

With any luck your scraping will reveal a smooth sub surface that may need only a latex based seal before painting.

If you opt to leave paper up because removing will ruin the walls too much, still seal that paper before paint.

Wall covering prints can resist that paint and kind of bleed through.

Assuming it's not vinyl paper, paper paper absorbs the paint.

It is harder to 'cover' with out multiple coats. The wet paper can take longer to dry before you can second or third coat it.

A sealer will provide a better base coat to paint on than multiple coats of paint.

If you choose a textured painting style to cover / blend in wall inperfections, look into the "ragging" techniques.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3NA1SBD5jY




4too
 
THE SLAUGHTER BEGINS

We've begun our work yesterday. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded: the wallpaper more or less trips beautifully and comes off in large flakes (50x50cm large), with the occassionaly troublesome element where the workers actually bothered to apply glue. These troublesome spots give me a bit of a headache, but a water/winegar mix seems to break it down beautifully (it hates the wallpaper in general too, found it out after doing a test if it can be cleaned up in the other rooms). So I should have no problems ripping it off.

Though ripping off the wallpaper is easy. Painting is a bit harder, particularly since while the walls are in a good overall shape, there are some holes I need to plaster over (basically, twenty year old nail holes that crumbles some) and even if the wallpaper is ripped off, there are thin layers of fossilized (dried doesn't even begin to describe it) glue and small bits of paper that if I had to scab individually, I'd have a full time job for the next year.

Thus, I'm partial towards 4too/Silencer's solution, to use a latex-based sealant (is that the right word?) to provide proper foundation for the paint layers. Any reccommendations? Keep in mind that I'm living in Germany, which can be a funny place sometimes.

(Also, thanks for the help guys, much appreciated :))
 
Branding!?! We Don't Need No Stinking Branding!!1!

Branding!?! We Don't Need No Stinking Branding!!1!







Zinsser's 'Bin' is a brand of latex sealant in the US. Often referred to as "Bin's".

If I recall the white shellac product was for sealing in preparation for a leveling skim coat, providing a less flexing surface to the dry wall finish tools. More control of how much 'mud' got on the wall.

And, and, and you don't need to bother, so all the better! White shellac. :( Burning your brain cells is better when it's a recreation. ;)

A good spackle-ing paste is dry wall finish. Cheap, and sanding feathers it to blend in, if you don't apply it too thick.

Sizing the applying trowels depends on the size of holes, cracks, or rough areas you are coating. At some point a 6 or 8 inch wide blade might be nice, but you can make up for small appliers by sanding.

Dry wall finish sands with a plastic screen material and if you get a sanding head, will be able to use a pole attachment, sized same as for the paint roller.

Standard screw in stuff. Might even find this stick on a mop or broom head.

The sand head on a pole will give you more leverage in sanding your wall patching.

Less 'mud' on the wall means less sanding. Here less is less!


:o wait.


All the better, you can use this screen sander to remove the last wall paper glue patches, after it's been softened with your human friendly solvent and dried a bit.

All this sanding, … (paper) dust masks may be a good idea.





4too
 
Tagaziel said:
use a latex-based sealant (is that the right word?) to provide proper foundation for the paint layers. Any reccommendations? Keep in mind that I'm living in Germany, which can be a funny place sometimes.
Click to expand...

I'm not too certain if it's the best possible foundation, as I think a "Latexwandenfarbe", while great for covering troublesome surfaces, can be notoriously hard to paint over it if it's too "gummy" - so ask the friendly Boche at the local IG Farben outlet if it takes to such treatment.

I assume the German chemical industry can provide you with a bespoke range of foundation+finish paint products...
 
Agreed. some of that stuff is a nightmare. I had a spot the previous owner tried to fix... the paint rolled on like water on teflon.

here is my renovation motto: when in doubt, chop it out.

Or hang a big ass picture.
 
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