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House Painting Terminology 101
Read to find out all about house painting terminology.
Knowing the jargon a paint contractor uses can help with understanding bids and determining which questions to ask when learning about house painting.
Texture is the mud applied to a bare wall to make it bumpy. Orange Peel texure is applied with a hopper, which is a texture shooting machine, a paint supply. It has a rough appearance in house painting and looks like the inside of an orange peel. Splatter Drag is Orange Peel texture dragged with a trowel for a smooth appearance. Crow's Foot is rarely used anymore. It's achieved by pressing a brush with flattened bristles into wet texture to achieve a vein-like look. The popular Mediterranean texture is splatterred in thick clumps and can be dragged to create different effects. Mexican texture, similar to Mediterranean, can be made to look like stucco by adding sand to the mud. Skip Trowel is texture spread on thick with a trowel. A varying look can be achieved with different trowel widths. Acoustic is the foam ball texture shot with a hopper onto ceilings. It has been replaced by Splatter Drag in newer homes.
There are two main types of paint for house painting. Latex refers to water-based paint. It dries fast, is water soluble, and is used for most applications. Brush strokes can be minimized by mixing a water-based additive with the paint. Oil-based paint requires paint thinner for clean up, dries slowly, and is thick. An oil-based additive can thin the paint for easier application and helps minimize brush strokes. Never apply latex paint over oil-based paint. Glossy surface primers are designed to prevent latex from peeling off an oil-based surface, but their effectiveness has been questioned.
Paints also have sheens, or degrees of glossiness. Traditionally, paints wih a higher sheen are more durable and easier to clean than those with a lower sheen. The range of paint sheens is as follows: flat (no sheen), eggshell (light sheen), satin (medium sheen), semi gloss (glossy sheen), and gloss (high sheen).
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