How to Stain Your Deck With Benjamin Moore's Arborcoat

If you really want to learn the basics about staining your deck, take a look at a few of the videos we produced for Benjamin Moore. They feature Arborcoat Exterior Stain and their prep products (Remove, Restore, Brighten, and Clean). As of this blog post, Benjamin Moore hasn't yet posted most of our videos, but they should be doing so soon. The deck pictured here is the one we "restored" and stained with the semi-transparent finish and protective clear coat.

After using these products for a few years, we have really seen how well they work. I guess you just need to watch the videos to see them in action (Restore and Brighten anyway). I could tell you fifty times how great they work, but really, I'll just let you watch the videos and see for yourself.

I guess I'll also say something about Arborcoat--we love the stuff. Since it's water-based instead of oil, it's a lot easier on us (no stink, no paint thinner required, cleans up in the yard with the hose). It's easy to use, easy to touch up, easy to maintain. This is not BS. It's really true. If you're going to go to the trouble of staining your deck or fence, go to your local Benjamin Moore store and check it out. You won't be sorry. They should pay me for saying things like this, but they don't. They pay us for making videos, but they don;t pay me to toe the company line. I guess that's the good thing about being self-employed! As far as I'm concerned, Arborcoat is the best stain out there (at least it's the best one I've seen/worked with).

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How to Paint: Using Benjamin Moore's ADVANCE

We recently produced this video for Benjamin Moore--it highlights ADVANCE, their new water-clean-up interior oil-based paint.  It's great for trim or any other place where you might want the look of an oil, but don't want the stink and trouble associated with it.

You don't have to watch the video in tiny format--you can take it to regular, full-sized YouTube if you want by clicking on the video once it starts playing:

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Smoothing New Texture to Match the Old

In the Rattlesnake job, the taper textured a few damaged areas in an attempt to match the existing texture. But as often happens, his end result was rough and didn't really match. You might experience something like this on your own painting projects, and chances are that if you do, you don't know how to fix it.

In this picture, you can see how rough his texture turned out compared to the yellow wall on the right. If we painted it at this point, the texture would be too heavy, and it would draw every eye to the patch.

In the following picture, you can really see how rough the new texture turned out. It doesn't really look anything like the old wall.

So to fix it, all we need to do is get a wet rag and lightly rub away some of the new mud. Here I am using a rougher rag since its fibers will work like mild sandpaper.

When you wet your rag, don't use too much water--it dissolves drywall mud pretty fast. if you get it too wet, you risk removing too much mud and ruining your new texture. Just get the rag wet, wring it out, then ball it up so you have layers of rag between your hand and the wall. Err on the dry side at first, then go to the wall and start gently wiping in circular motions along the edge of the new mud.

In the following video (which I took from my phone, so it's not to our usual high standards) you can see how I do it:

Notice the scratching sound the rag is making--I am erring on the side of caution by not using too much water. It's still wet enough that it doesn't produce sanding dust, but it's not dripping with water either.

Just rub your way across the wall, taking down the high spots in the texture. Re-wet your rag as necessary (it will be), and keep going. You can see how much mud I removed--and it is starting to resemble the old texture.

In the following pictures, you can see that the taper created large stringy lines that don't really resemble the existing texture, Well, once we paint the new mud, it will mostly blend in and go away. If someone stands in front of the wall and intentionally examines the surface, they will certainly be able to see the patch, but for everyday life, it will look just fine.

Take special care along the edges where the new texture meets the old--smudge away the mud as you feather the edge. You want to avoid leaving any hard edges, since they will draw your eye.

The main goal is to level out the textures--then when we apply a couple coats of paint (Benjamin Moore's Aura yet again, in this case), they will blend into each other.

My brother Josh finished up painting the wall--it ended up matching perfectly.

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How to Clean a Paint Brush

This Brush Cleaning Video is our first independent video produced for the VideoPaintGuide. Hopefully it teaches you the basics about cleaning paint brushes. Please, if you like it, share links to the video and bug other people to check it out. Even more than the videos we produced so far for Benjamin Moore, we need to get hits for this video. The baby's future depends on it!

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From Dog Room to Baby Room 2

So I got all fired up last night and applied the first coat of Bittersweet Chocolate to the walls of the transforming Dog Room. Even though the pictures don't do the color justice, you can pretty easily see how well Aura covered in one coat.

Justin brushing a straight line without tape.

I always move too fast when someone is trying to capture me painting. You can see how I first went around the room, brushing in the edges. You should brush about a brush-width, which is enough for a roller to get close to corners but not hit the ceiling.

This is especially important if you aren't painting the ceiling (I have zero room for error when touching the ceiling since I don't have touch-up paint for it).

Justin with brush in hand.

I always feel like such a cheeseball when posing for pictures, but I guess you might as well see me on site. Note that I painted the edges of the walls surrounding the window and ceiling and left the rest for the roller to tackle. I could have brushed it since it's such a small area, but rolling goes a lot faster.

Wow, my hair sure looks sharp and pointy tonight! Just for the record,
 that's not my goal. I need a haircut.

Again, I brushed in all the edges of the walls then rolled the big spaces.

I didn't get any pictures of me rolling, but we'll leave that for a video or 2 later on.



This is one coat of Aura--it still needs the second application to be perfect, but this is one hallmark of a great quality paint.



It is now well on its way to becoming a different sort of place.I still need to finish up the second coat and the trim. Then we can move in the the baby stuff.

















Note that I a didn't use a roller tray. Instead, I am used a 5 gallon bucket with a roller grid, as well as a 2 foot Wooster roller pole.

The professional roller setup.

In future posts, including in videos, I will demonstrate the benefits of using this sort of roller setup and not the roller tray (at least for most projects, anyway).

These shots are so blown out that I am a bit embarrassed to post them, but it's so bright and snowy outside today that it just blasts through the blinds. I guess I should use my good camera and not my phone.
The Droid camera is only so good despite what they say.

Okay, this picture is ultra dark, but short of setting up some lights or waiting for the sun to go away, I haven't been able to get better pics off the painted walls so far.





Still, look how well it covered!

We're thinking about putting up a vinyl wall decal of a tree of some sort, although we need to decide where we will put the big dresser so we know which wall(s) to do it on.

























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Using Benjamin Moore's ADVANCE

This week we worked on a nice remodel project that included the preparation and painting of these simple 6-panel doors (16 total doors). We also sanded, primed, and painted this bookshelf, which had previously been factory stained and sealed. For all the trim and the bookshelf, we used Benjamin Moore's ADVANCE, interior water-clean-up, oil-based paint. It's a great choice if you want the durability of an oil but don't want the smell and trouble usually associated with traditional oil.

Unfortunately, the bookcase proved to be difficult for my Droid to properly capture. Still, I think you can see the nice finish we ended up with in the end.

For more information on how to apply Advance, take a look at our instructional video on it. It will show you pretty much everything you need to know about using it.

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