Every now and then you see those awful cracks and bubbles appearing in your drywall. Sometimes they are nail-pops; where the nails that are in the 2 x 4’s start to come out. You know that if you hammer them back in, there will be a huge hole in the wall and many cracks.

Cracks in Drywall and the Painting Process

Cracks often appear simply because the house is “settling” or the building shifts a little and it puts stresses here and there. If a part of the drywall was not finished correctly when it was first done, there will be flaws that arise. Occasionally the wall pulls slightly down and away from the ceiling and there is a new crack to contend with. There are a myriad of ways to create a crack in your wall.

Drywall Damage from Water

Leaving a window open a lot during rain can eventually cause considerable damage to the drywall. The operative word here being “dry”. Drywall products don’t like to get wet and when they do, Continue Reading…

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SHELL BUSEY’S HOUSESMART RADIO SHOW

Starting October 30th KASSEL PAINTING LTD is proud to sponsor the new Shell Busey’s HouseSmart radio show on AM 650 C-ISL radio.

The new show airs Mondays 6 – 7pm and is Canada’s very first weekday drive-time home improvement show!

Shell will be live on air, in his words; “answering all your questions on making home improvement projects ‘just that easy’.” With his many years in the building supply trade, home improvements and problem-solving for all areas of construction, Shell’s advice is truly valued and proven reliable by his thousands of followers. Continue Reading…

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A paint job is the most economical home makeover!

Are your walls and trim scuffed, nicked, faded or outdated? Do the MOST economical makeover – paint.

You’ve seen it in magazines in the before and after pictures.

An ordinary room suddenly looks extraordinary with only the use of paint! Changing to the most up to date colors; making a feature wall; using stronger colors than ‘contractor beige’ all make for the least expensive change that you can make to upgrade your home or office.

And use our design service if you need help to choose the most up-to-date color schemes. It’s surprising how much value a good Designer can bring to change the look AND ‘up the value’ of a living or working space.

“PETER BYRNE is the owner and hands-on manager of Kassel Painting Limited. In the last two decades he has run over 1500 painting projects totalling $5.5M. There is little that can go right (or wrong) on a job-site he has not seen, solved, and lived to talk about.”

Creative Commons Attribution: Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Kassel Painting and a clickable link back to this page.

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People ask me; “when is the best time to paint?”

From a consumer standpoint you might say ‘summer’. The weather is great, the cotton is high and the living is easy. If you are painting indoors you can have all the windows open and so on.

The problem is that summer’s the only time for outside painting. Realize outside painting is vital to protect the building from weather. It is not simply a colour choice. You need to do it every 6 to 8 years. And it’s not just one or more rooms. It’s the whole house. It’s protection of your investment.

From this you can understand how outside work is more than 50% of a contractors business. Yet we only have maybe 4 months of actual dry/temperate weather to do the work. So the math of supply and demand shows that if more than 1/2 the work has to be done in 1/3 of the time then we aren’t all that available to paint your bedroom in July. It’s the economics of time.

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Most modern homes are built and sold with a drab looking stamped-metal front door unit. Usually it is the factory finish white and if it has glass panels these often have a plastic frame, which later discolours to yellow in the sun. They can look pretty unattractive. The factory finish is very durable but in the end boring.

Now if you go to Europe, places where houses are built out of stone or brick they go in for distinctive, brightly painted front door colours because the rest of the house is brick, just like every house in the neighbourhood and a street of brick alone is certainly boring. That front door is your mark of distinction. And since YOU are not boring (right?) you can spice up the entrance to your house and say, “Here it is! This is my house! Over here!” Simply by jazzing up your door’s colour.

The way to pick a new and interesting front door colour is to consider the rest of your home. You want colours that coordinate and you can read my article on the Science of Colour to figure it out. But traditionally deep rich colours work well. Gloss Black, Deep Chocolate Brown, Burgundy Red are very popular. You can even get into rich Yellows, Greens and Blues. Certainly this is not a place for pastels but glossy deep rich vivid colours are the way to go.

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Kitchens present a unique situation in regards to colour. First of all, before you worry about paint colours for kitchen we should concern ourselves with what kind of paint for the kitchen.

How many people who have grown up using – oil based enamel will tell you this is a must for the kitchen. Back in the day this was probably true but today oil-based paints have been outlawed due to environmental concerns. In their place are the new generation of ‘water based oil paints’. It sounds like an oxymoron but it is true. How this is done and the chemistry behind it is a little complicated, but what it means is brushes and rollers used for these new paints can be cleaned up with soap and water just like latex paint. (You have to clean up while the paint is still wet.)

This eliminates the need for clean up with turpentine (mineral spirits), which gets washed down the drain, is highly toxic to fish and highly toxic to the people who eat those fish.

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Bedrooms, for many people are not just a place to sleep, but a sanctuary away from the noise and chaos of our modern life in this electronic age. We can relax and read a book, take a nap, or do some of our best thinking just staring at that ceiling. Romance has even been known to bloom in that diverse space!

The bedroom doubles as a dressing room. Most people keep their clothes and personal effects there. For ladies it is often their make-up counter as well as shoe store and jewellery safe. It is a wonder there is any ‘room’ for a ‘bed’ in bedrooms at all.

Paint Colours for bedrooms are therefore highly personal. This is a room where pastel shades may be best used as they are soothing and calming. This is one of the few rooms I find the colour blue really works well. If it coordinates with the rest.

Important: When picking the paint colours for your bedroom look first at the items which are definitely remaining as part of the décor. For instance if you have a favourite piece of art that contains a lot of purples and golds you would want to pick colours that complement those colours of this focal point. See my article on the science of colour to learn about complementary colours.

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The Science of Paint and Color

Maybe they tried to teach you this in art class at school and you just thought, “why all those colors look great, why leave any out!” If you asked a five-year-old to pick the paint and colors for your house she’d probably use ALL of the colors on that wheel. And who knows? Maybe she’d be right.

But there are some things that seem to look pleasant together. Generally the paint and colors straight across from each other on the wheel are considered complementary, meaning good combinations. The adjoining ones are considered too close a hue and not so good together. But it is all a matter of taste.

• The most basic paint and colors are the PRIMARY colors. Blue – Yellow – Red on our wheel.
• The next group, SECONDARY colors, are halfway between the PRIMARY colors.
• TERTIARY (third) colors are in between the PRIMARY and SECONDARY. That’s all. Just look at the wheel. It’s simple.

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It is now officially our exterior painting season and Kassel Painting projects are moving outdoors. The first question many people ask is “Can you help us with choosing the colors?”

“Yes I can.”

First of all some paint colors seem more difficult than others. For instance, unless you are Greek or live in a Tropic or Mediterranean Climate, blue is very difficult as a main body color. I don’t know why. It could be because most North American homes are painted in earthy tones but often the blues are vivid bright blues that look cheap compared to richer tones. Don’t get me wrong, I love blue: Blue jeans, blue-eyed blonds, Rhythm and Blues and Blue Skies nothin’ but Blue Skies! But painting houses blue I find is not so good. The one above is okay because of the style having limited wall space and lots of white trim.

If you must use blue I advise use a muted grey blue and then as a trim color more than a body color. Whaddya do if you must paint it blue? Go ahead – it’s your house!

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