apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

All flush from the great ideas I've gleaned over the year from you all, I am going to spend New Year's weekend transforming icky basement into a relaxing beachy hangout room. However, the paneling is the cheapest stuff from the 70's you can imagine--it's actually rough to the touch. Think pallet material on the walls. I don't think water washing to prep it for paint is a good idea. Would a thorough vaccum before priming work, would you think?

Last night while caught in Holiday traffic in Northern California, my parents and I listened to a great radio show featuring Hanukkah-themed jazz music. Listener-sponsored jazz station KCSM has a weekly program hosted by San Francisco broadcasting icon Mal Sharpe called "Back on Basin Street." Last night, his show focused on Hanukkah-themed jazz and swing songs. Below is the program description. (Unfortunately, no program playlist was up on KCSM's website. Nor was the program archived when I checked this morning.)

Program Desription:
"Kenny Ellis' Hanukkah Swings featured on Back on Basin Street with Mal Sharpe, this first night of Hanukkah. Musician, cantor, teacher, and comedian Kenny Ellis' Hanukkah Swings melds the joy of the holiday of Hanukkah with the uptempo beat of the Big Band Sound. It's a real labor of love reflecting Ellis' affection for both Jewish culture and musical idols such as Count Basie, Les Brown and Benny Goodman, to name just a few."

In addition to Ellis' music, other more comic songs were featured: Tom Lehrer's "(I'm Spending) Hanukkah in Santa Monica" and "(It's Good to be) A Jew at Christmas"--sample lyrics: On Christmas Day, we'll eat Chinese; Walk empty streets until we freeze; Once a year the city's ours alone; Anyone you see must be a Jew; Why not say, "Hi! I'm a Jew, too!"; The goyim are all getting drunk at home.

But Ellis' tracks were the stand-outs for me, especially "Swinin' Dreidel" (an upbeat, jazzy rendition of "The Dreidel Song") which should be a staple for any Holiday party.

KCSM is the best.

atomic librarian-
There's a roll-on texturing material that I can't remember what they call it, but it's sold at paint stores, and it's not called stucco, but it's something like that. Anyway, it can be rolled on with a texture roller, but I think that if I were you I would used something like a trowel or something, and I would probably go with the grain.

In fact, I think I would probably do two things: I would try to fill in those grooves between the panels with a small trowel and then after they dry, I would probably go over the whole thing with trowel in the direction of the grain of the wood, at least first.

Once that was dry, I would take an electric palm sander and go over the whole area, perhaps kind of lightly, because that might still have some of what sounds like almost a stringy grain to it, and you might need to make that a little smoother.

Then, if it's smooth enough for you, prime it. If it's not, then apply another layer of that texturing stuff. I think that if you roll it on with a thick texture roller, you're always going to detect that grain coming through it, though, so you might just stick with that going-in-the-direction-of-the-grain technique, regardless.

Honestly, that sounds like a HUGE amount of space to cover with primer, but I seriously would only trust that kind of priming to something like Kilz or BIN primer, and at that, only their oil-based versions, because they're so seriously good, but I hope that basement has at least some windows that you can open, because that is some seriously stinky stuff!

THEN paint over that. But honestly, I think the easier thing might be to just sheetrock over all of it if you're wanting it to be really smooth, because sheetrock is so much easier to smooth out between than the little dance I just described over what you're talking about.

Good luck with it, and let us know what you ended up doing and how it turned out!

Oh, Curtis! You have increased my enthusiasm for this project with these ideas.

First, I would prefer it to look weathered and rough. I hadn't thought about the panel grooves, but you're right--it would be hard to not have bizarre bird dropping-like paint drips accumulating.

Sheetrocking isn't really an option due to lack of skill and strength. And money. And lack of help. I'm really going for a quickie color remake.

I'll keep you all posted. First thing is to finish cleaning it out and ripping up the carpet. Then I might buy some paint and slather a section this weekend.

atomic librarian -
If you really like the weathered look, you might consider (after you've done however much of the above you can face to get rid of the worst splinters) painting it and THEN doing a half-and-half latex glazing liquid and paint combination in vertical strokes of painting on and wipping off, in whatever color you want, which would emphasize that wood grain but still keeping it with just a fresher color. The look would be KIND of like pickling or something.

Get going on those photos NOW because "before" pictures really help to clarify what's going on with the "after" pictures.

for anyone who may remember the horizontal bookcase discussion(s):

got a dwr sapien bookcase as a christmas gift, put it together today, and i love it. incredibly easy to move by myself, and then assemble. on top of that, it opened up so much unexpected space in my tiny apartment that i ended up doing some rearranging, and i actually feel like there's room to move. hurray!

Colored stains. There are all kinds of colored stains at Home Depot: from acid to peaced. They're near the paint aisle.

They're water based so you can't screw up. And, you can layer 'em for a dimensional effect.

Woke up the other night, saw huge cockroach on wall. It had wings. I yelped. Spent two hours hunting the damn thing. Swat, where did it go?, search, did I get it? oh f**k it's crawling back up the wall, swat, repeat 30 times.

Finally killed it, and realized that it had too many good hiding places. So I cleaned the clutter I'd been meaning to clean for ages. Still working on finishing it, but made some strides.

Can you tell me what do you think of this combination? The table is cheap but solid wood, no less, and the chairs, well, go without saying, but the two combined?

This chair in the green:

http://momastore.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=30766&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10262&categoryId=10263&giftCat=null

This table in the light oak:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSAA:US:11&Item=4392671173