Paint Job

Extensive preparation and painstaking application are the ying and yang of a good interior paint job. They're equally important -- skimping on one will ruin the other.How well the surface is prepared will determine how well the paint goes on; how well the paint goes on will determine whether the finished surface looks professional or amateurish.Of course you can hire professionals to do the painting, with a result that is swift and (very likely) neat.But in fact, painting is one of the easier skills to learn and it's very rewarding when you see the transformation you've wrought in a room.

Finding family-friendly DIY projects What are some winter home improvement projects that are family-friendly? What are the projects that are safer for children to participate? Painting is the most family-friendly project out there. And interior painting in the winter is always a great way to spruce things up. Take time to cover and mask areas that you do not want covered in paint, as children will be learning and may spill a bit. I recommend using water-born paints with Low VOCs such as Clark+Kensington.

WHEN IT comes to do-it-yourself items on a project, the most common thing people like to do is paint. Anyone can paint, right?What people don't realize is that most of the work that goes into a paint job is in the preparation of the surfaces. This is especially true of old finishes. Preparing the surfaces correctly will have a great impact on the finished product.When clients tell Ron that they want to do the painting themselves, he gives them some options: Do you just want to apply the paint, or do you want to do the whole job?

I read in today's Sun that in the course of the $800,000 renovation and repair of the State House Dome, the Department of General Services developed a "proprietary" formula for paint that lasts 50 years ("State House dome dazzles as work ends," Dec. 23). If that formula indeed belongs to the Maryland - which it should - the state's financial crisis is over. That formula is worth a fortune. I, for one, would like to know more about this discovery and who owns it. Jack McGarvey, Parkville

Frigid winter weekends keep you in the house, where you end up staring at the same old walls. Then you notice that the paint on those walls is chipped. And then you decide to "touch them up." Before you can say "home improvement," there goes your weekend, and your sanity. Last weekend, I got sucked into two such projects, touching up painted walls in the kitchen and an upstairs hallway. One wall was a satiny light brown, the other a dark shade of blue. As a painter, I was one for two. The success story, the light-brown wall - I think the official color is Antique White - is gorgeous.

Call it paint-chip paranoia. You have been burnt before; your confidence has been shaken.How many times have you taken these tiny samples home and tried to match them to fabric or a color in a painting? Even when you take a fabric or picture into the store for computer matching, the color rarely turns out the way you envisioned.The paint looks too dark or too light. The terra cotta that appeared sensational in a small chip looks disgusting on a big wall.So how can those chic decorating magazines and designer show houses use unusual colors that work perfectly?

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- As Steve Garcia rumbled slowly down State Street on a recent evening here, he was treated more like a one-man parade than a police officer working a beat.A little boy looked up from his ice cream cone and sighed, "Awesome!" A carload of people flashed him the thumbs-up sign. Patrons of an open-air bar jumped up and cheered.The object of admiration wasn't the 14-year veteran of the Santa Barbara Police Department but rather, his fancy wheels.Sporting a flashy paint job, low-slung tires, mag wheels and chromed engine parts, Garcia's car is not your standard-issue police unit.

I gave my kid the lecture about painting. It was the traditional speech, the one my dad had given me many years ago. It stressed the importance of preparation and clean-up. And it contained large sections devoted to the importance of not putting too much paint on the brush, of covering the floor with newspapers, and of not knocking the paint can over.The 9-year-old listened, or pretended to, much as I had done when I was a kid and felt the surge of excitement that comes from holding a brush in your hand as you stand in front of a surface that is begging for paint.

Finding family-friendly DIY projects What are some winter home improvement projects that are family-friendly? What are the projects that are safer for children to participate? Painting is the most family-friendly project out there. And interior painting in the winter is always a great way to spruce things up. Take time to cover and mask areas that you do not want covered in paint, as children will be learning and may spill a bit. I recommend using water-born paints with Low VOCs such as Clark+Kensington.

One thing about the days getting longer and the light getting brighter: It makes winter-tired walls, windows and woodwork look dingier than ever. I have a theory that one of the primal human urges of spring is a desire to mix a luscious new color and splash it over everything in sight.There is a tremendous satisfaction in making something look brand-new and sassy instead of grimy and dispirited. The paint stores, well aware of this basic human need, are responding with all kinds of sales, new gadgets, and good advice for the neophyte as well as the advanced painter.

The last of the scaffolding that enclosed the dome of the State House since summer will come down Friday — leaving Annapolis with an uncluttered view of its most famous landmark just in time for Christmas. For all practical purposes, the $800,000 restoration job is over. "It was just a good job well done and worked out great," said Bart L. Thomas, who oversaw the project for the state Department of General Services. The golden acorn at the very top of the soaring wooden dome has been regilded.

Baltimore was known for things quirky and criminal long before Mark J. Adams opened what he claims is the world's only hot-pink bail bond office. And so the city's reputation should survive once the rain lets up and the "shocking pink" former florist shop that Adams moved into a month ago can be repainted. "We're going to paint it a stately green," Adams said. Fair Deal bail bonds sits at 2150 Boston, in a mostly residential neighborhood between Canton and Fells Point.

The Bay Lady is going upscale. New DJ booths, bars and dance floors, and renovated bathrooms and dining halls will greet cocktail cruise-goers and wedding parties when they board the 450-passenger vessel later this spring. The boat's leaky steel hull will have been repaired, and fresh paint will gleam from stem to stern. When the nearly $1 million refurbishing is complete April 24, the 20-year-old excursion boat will be rechristened the Spirit of Baltimore, the first overt sign that there's a new -- and deep-pocketed -- owner in town.

Frigid winter weekends keep you in the house, where you end up staring at the same old walls. Then you notice that the paint on those walls is chipped. And then you decide to "touch them up." Before you can say "home improvement," there goes your weekend, and your sanity. Last weekend, I got sucked into two such projects, touching up painted walls in the kitchen and an upstairs hallway. One wall was a satiny light brown, the other a dark shade of blue. As a painter, I was one for two. The success story, the light-brown wall - I think the official color is Antique White - is gorgeous.

When Bard Wickkiser first laid eyes on an empty Greenmount Avenue rowhouse on the edge of Guilford, he knew he had something special. For months, Wickkiser searched Charles Village and the areas nearby, looking for an older home that was sound but needed some tender loving care. "The house sat on the market for over a year and no one bought it," said Wickkiser. "I did a lot of homework and a lot of sniffing around before I found this. I thought someone had moved the decimal point on the price or maybe a `1' was missing.

The job looms over the Chesapeake Bay like the Bay Bridge. In fact, it is the Bay Bridge.The bridge's south span, sweeping 4.3 miles across the bay's choppy waters, needs a new coat of paint. A team of workmen is deep into the chore.It's a task likely to make a weekend painter or even most professionals feel faint -- 2.5 million square feet of rusting, peeling steel to blast, clean, patch, prime and coat. And that's only the center portion of the span.Just approaching the job each day is a challenge.

Employees of Bon Secours Health Systems Inc. in Marriottsville traded in their desk jobs, tailored business suits, leather pumps and briefcases for paintbrushes, ladders and hedge trimmers Friday.The 36 volunteers from the national health care company's corporate headquarters spent the day painting, repairing and landscaping four residential homes for mentally retarded adults in Columbia, Glenelg, Elkridge and Ellicott City.Sister Anne Lutz of Bon Secours said she chose the service project from several submitted by Howard County volunteer groups because it matched the talents of the employees.

We have always taken our interior roller-type painting pretty seriously. Neither of us can ever remember laying in a couple of six-packs and some pizza and inviting over 10 friends (randomly chosen for their willingness to participate) for a painting party.By all means invite friends to help -- if you know they're good (or at least as good as you are). But you may not want to turn partying people loose on the walls you have just spent days (or weeks) carefully plastering smooth. No matter how meticulous your plaster or drywall finishing has been, a bad paint job will make the walls look awful.

WHEN IT comes to do-it-yourself items on a project, the most common thing people like to do is paint. Anyone can paint, right?What people don't realize is that most of the work that goes into a paint job is in the preparation of the surfaces. This is especially true of old finishes. Preparing the surfaces correctly will have a great impact on the finished product.When clients tell Ron that they want to do the painting themselves, he gives them some options: Do you just want to apply the paint, or do you want to do the whole job?

NOTICE TO DRIVERS: Drivers should be aware of the manhole at Bosley Avenue and York Road in Towson. Commuter Russell Hackman says, "It's about a yard in diameter and feels like it must be three deep. It's a disgrace that it has not been repaired. Many a front end has been knocked out of line at that spot."Intrepid One wants stories of I-70, Beltway intersectionIn search of stories from commuters who frequent Interstate 70 where it intersects Interstate 695. Intrepid One wants to know your thoughts: Is it getting worse, or is it just our imagination?