PAINTING THE HOUSE
After much solicitude and money have been expended on the construction of the house, it is poor economy to let it suffer for want of paint. Not infrequently the house is planned so large, or so much is spent on its erection that means are not at hand for fully protecting the outside with suitable paints.
As to the colors of paints or their combinations, little can be said, since tastes and conditions are extremely variable. A farm house should have its own distinctive features, and its own personality, and while it may be similar to many other houses it should not be a duplicate of any other one.
In manufacturing towns long rows of houses are built, each one the exact duplicate of all the others in shape, dimensions, and color. The effect is abominable. This illustration of exact imitation only goes to show how necessary it is to have diversity of style in the houses themselves and variation in the colors of the paints if the maximum beauty of the home and adaptation to landscape and site are secured. In painting the farm house beauty should not be ignored, but beauty may not be compatible with durability and necessary economy. The farm home may and should be placed in such beautiful environment that the paint which covers it sinks into comparative insignificance as compared to the painting of the city house; therefore the elements of economy and durability play as important parts in the painting of farm houses as does beauty. Even a great, plain, two-story white farm house with green window-blinds can be made to look beautiful and home-like if it has a suitable setting of noble trees.
If the outside covering of the house is placed some time before it receives its first coat of paint, the wood tends to check and usually becomes too dry for applying it. If exposed for some days to the direct rays of the sun before painting, so much of the oil of the paint will be taken up by the wood that there will not be enough left to bind the mineral matter of the paint to the wood. This is especially the case where an attempt is made to complete the painting by the application of but two coats, in which case, the first or prime coat must contain relatively much mineral material and little oil, and must be spread thickly if the surfaces are to be well covered by the two coats. Not infrequently, the outside woodwork is swollen and somewhat displaced by rains before the roof is in place. Even after it has dried out the ideal conditions are not secured. The roof should be placed as soon as the siding is completed, or if possible before. The carpenter should put on the first, or prime, coat as fast as the house is sided; that is, the woodwork which has been placed from one scaffold or stage should be painted from the scaffold before the one above is constructed. The corner boards, window sash, and frame should receive one coat of paint before they leave the shop. The prime coat may be of yellow ochre mixed with some white lead, since the after painting with the desired color will cover the yellow if two coats be applied. Good yellow ochre is a most durable paint when properly mixed and spread, although it may be said that the more white lead used in the prime coat the better. Yellow ochre should contain a large per cent of iron; when ochres are composed largely of colored clay they are inferior. The paint for the first coat should, in any case, be thin, since the oil which it contains plays an important part. This first coat tends, or should tend, to fill the wood with oil so that the oil in the after coat will mostly remain with the paint, and not leave it and pass into the wood, thereby destroying its binding force. Too much stress can hardly be laid on the necessity of rubbing the first coat into the wood by vigorous use of the brush. To realize the value of this principle one has but to visit a first-class carriage manufactory and observe the methods which are in use to prepare a carriage body for its final coat of dark paint and varnish. In too many cases the first coat of paint is mixed too thickly and is not pressed into the pores of the wood as it should be, in which case the paint may either peel or rub off in a few years. The country boy dressed in his best black suit often has a reminder of this if he chances to lean against the outside of the old country church while “waiting for meeting to take up.”
All outside painting, with the exception of the first coat, should be done, as far as possible, in cool weather. Early spring and late fall, when flies and dust are not present, are the best. If the house is built in the summer, the second coat may be put on in the fall and the third coat the following spring. The paint of the second coat may be a little thicker than that of the first, and that of the third a little thicker than the second. If the best job is desired the paint for all three coats should be mixed thinner than is customary, in which case a fourth coat will be required the following fall. The house will now have a polish similar to the well painted carriage body, and, like it, will resist moisture and remain good for a long time. If a building is to be painted at all it would better be painted at the beginning and be kept well painted, as it is the more economical in the end. Better curtail the size of the house than to build it so large that the outside covering must be neglected.
The oil used in paints is usually derived from the vegetable oil found in flax or linseed. Although many other kinds of oils have been tried, nothing has been discovered which can take the place, in paints, of linseed oil. This is most remarkable, for there are many vegetable oils which are very similar to this one. Linseed oil is expensive as compared with several other kinds, hence many attempts have been made to find an oil equally as good for painting; so far as I am able to learn, none have been discovered. Linseed oil in paints, when dried, forms a hard, tough, gluey coating which serves to bind firmly the particles of paint together, and to the wood, and to exclude water as no other oil does; hence if any other oil is mixed with the linseed oil, it is said to be adulterated. At the present time linseed oil is adulterated in some cases, and it is believed that this adulteration is the chief cause of the lack of durability in many of the ready-mixed paints. If linseed oil be mixed with other oils which are wanting in its valuable characteristic, it is certain that such oils will not bind the particles of paint together as they should be bound.
At present the only protection is to purchase guaranteed pure oil of dealers who are reliable beyond peradventure. Outside painting should be done with unboiled oil unless, on account of the weather, boiled oil must be used to hasten drying. In extreme cases a drier (litharge) is used. The drying process should not be rapid in outside painting, as slow drying promotes durability.
The substances mixed with the oil to form paints are extremely variable in composition and color. Some are good, and are usually relatively high priced. Others are inferior and relatively low priced. Now that so many brands of ready-mixed paints of many tints are in common use, it is impracticable to analyze all of them and determine their quality so that the inferior may be distinguished from the superior. There appears to be but two ways out of this serious dilemma: use the best brands of the ready-mixed paints and await results, or purchase pure white lead and zinc paints and pure oil, and tint to suit tastes and conditions. Heretofore, to do this successfully has required much skill and patience, especially if the house was to be painted in many colors.
Paints are now so universally adulterated that I deem it my duty to call attention to a company which virtually guarantees the material sold. The National Lead Company makes white paints of pure white lead and pure linseed oil. It also manufactures pure tinting colors, at least the company so advertise, and without doubt would be liable for damages should the paints prove to be adulterated. Sample tint cards are furnished and directions given as to the quantity and kind of tinting material to be mixed with the white paint to give the desired color. All this greatly simplifies painting, and if these paints are pure, as represented, the farmer will have no difficulty in securing pure paint of any tint desired.
The farmer who desires a beautifully painted house, and simplicity, may well restrict the colors of the paints he uses to two, being careful that they are in harmony, one with the other, and with the character of the house and its surroundings.
The following figures show the composition of some common paints (No. 1 was analyzed at the Cornell Exp. Sta., the others at the Iowa Station):
I. The paint known as white lead, when pure, is a basic carbonate of lead mixed in oil. A sample showed—
| White lead | 93.62% |
| Oil and undetermined | 6.38% |
There was no evidence of adulteration.
II. White lead—
| White lead | 41.12% |
| Barium sulfate | 30.29% |
| Zinc oxide | 28.59% |
Adulterated with barium sulfate and zinc oxide. Barium sulfate is very heavy; in fact, in nature it is known as heavy spar.
III. Venetian red, dry—
| Ferric oxide | 24.12% | ||
| Calcium carbonate | - | 66.36% | |
| Calcium sulfate | |||
| Undetermined | 9.52% | ||
Adulterated with calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate. Venetian red is ferric oxide, or a natural red oxide of iron. Calcium carbonate is chalk or limestone, and calcium sulfate is plaster.
IV. Venetian red in oil—
| Ferric oxide | 12.82% |
| Calcium sulfate | 3.54% |
| Barium sulfate | 63.98% |
| Oil and undetermined | 19.66% |
| 100.00% |
Adulterated with barium sulfate and calcium sulfate.
CHAPTER X
INSIDE FINISH, HEATING, AND VENTILATION
As a rule, houses are built too quickly. The frame timbers are only partly seasoned when placed; the rains which fall before the house is roofed-in and the dampness caused by plastering all conspire to swell and make damp all portions of the wooden parts of the structure. Formerly, the casings of doors and windows and the floors were placed before the rooms were plastered; the better practice of plastering on “grounds”[6] and placing the woodwork after the mortar is dry is now observed by the builders of all good houses. In most cases even these improved methods of construction do not result in securing what is wanted—tight floors and doors and casings which will not shrink and warp out of shape. Nearly all of this trouble may be traced to two principal causes: the lumber which constitutes the inside finish may not be thoroughly seasoned, or the house may be so damp that the finish swells after it is placed. In either case, when the house becomes thoroughly dried out by artificial heat or otherwise, unsightly and dirt-holding cracks will appear. When expensive hard wood polished floors are laid, pains is taken to provide against shrinkage by kiln-drying the floor boards and by laying them where the air and sun unite to take up extraneous moisture in the rooms and in the floor boards used.
[6] Narrow strips of sufficient thickness to receive the lath and plaster, placed on the frame and other places where needed.
Comparatively few persons can afford hard wood floors, but this fact does not preclude having floors without wide cracks, which serve to retain dangerous and filthy material. There is no reason why tight floors may not be made of hard pine or other suitable material, provided a little extra pains be taken in their construction.
The laying of the floors should be the last carpenter work done in the new house. All this implies that a rough, cheap floor has been laid when the frame was constructed. The rough, diagonally laid sub-floor will cost something extra, but it results in so many benefits that it should never be dispensed with.
Fig. 82. A plain base board.
Fig. 83. A complex base board.
Windows and door frames must have inside casings, and baseboards, kitchen wainscoting and picture moldings cannot well be dispensed with. All these should be of the simplest and plainest construction. [Fig. 82] shows a cross section of a plain baseboard, and [Fig. 83] one of complex construction. Two styles of facings are shown in [Fig. 84]. The one style forms lodging places for dirt; the other reduces dust catching to the minimum. I notice that some of the newer passenger coaches, though most elegant, are built with smooth inside finish. With the exception of the window sills there are no lodging places for dust and cinders. The old-fashioned doors with thin panels, and numerous moldings have been discarded, and those as plain and uniform in thickness as a pane of window glass, substituted for them. The picture molding, as shown in [Fig. 85], may serve to support the picture and catch dirt as well. The other illustration ([Fig. 86]) shows one which may serve quite as well for the purpose desired without forming a dust shelf. If the window sashes are made with plain bevels and not molded, and all other window fixtures, as stops and the like, are constructed in the same way, the labor of keeping the house clean will be greatly reduced.
Fig. 84. Two styles of facing.
Fig. 85. The common but faulty picture moulding.
The wainscoting and the ceilings, if they are made of wood, should be constructed of wide boards, the cracks being covered with beveled battens. The old-fashioned, beaded, narrow ceiling material is not only difficult to keep tinted or varnished, but almost forbids cleanliness.
Fig. 86. A sanitary picture molding.
Most stairs are too steep; some are little better than ladders and more dangerous. The risers in the main stairway should not exceed 6¹⁄₂ inches, nor the steps be less than 12 inches wide. The back stair may have 7 to 7¹⁄₂ inches risers, and 10- to 11-inch steps. The best and most beautiful stair has one or more broad landings. The spiral or “corkscrew” stair is worst of all. The effort to economize space by cramping the stair is almost universal. The difference between a cramped stair and an ample one may not amount to more than 12 square feet of space, equivalent to the top of a small table. True, the children may go up an easy stair two steps at a time, but when their hair whitens they will bless the man who knew the difference between an easy, dignified stair and a step-ladder. Diminish the size of a room, add a foot to the width of the house, do anything rather than cramp the stairway.
As far as possible paint should be kept off the inside woodwork. There are but few varieties of wood which may not be made smooth; and by the use of hard oil, which is really oil and varnish mixed together, all woodwork becomes beautiful and can be easily cleaned. It appears almost sacrilegious to cover the fine grain of our native woods with cheap, adulterated paint. If some of the woods, such as ash, oak and chestnut, be sawed “on the quarter” and properly finished, they become more elegant and are in better taste than any of the imported high-priced woods. The farm house should be plain, substantial, and durable, and in many cases there is sufficient wealth to make it elegant and even refined by decorating the walls with a few fine pictures and providing useful books. We judge people somewhat by the furnishings of the rooms in which they live, and by their appreciation of things which are really beautiful and useful.
The comfort and elegance of the rooms depend quite as much on the plastered walls as on their wooden finish. Few things are more annoying than poor walls, which may fall at any time upon the furniture and rugs, and may even endanger the lives of the little ones. With quick-lime and sand and an honest and efficient workman, a good, durable wall may be secured; provided, however, that the joists and studding are strong enough to prevent vibration when the floors are walked upon or the doors are closed quickly.
In plastering, the green-coat finish should not be adopted, since poorer walls will inevitably be the result than by the scratch-coat method. To the new settler on the prairies living in a covered wagon, the time consumed in building a house was important; therefore the second coat of plaster was put on a few hours after the first. The pressure required to spread, level, and smooth the second coat often disturbed the clinches formed by the first coat. The bond of these mortar clinches being broken or disturbed, the wall was made weak. It is well known that if the bond between the lath and mortar is once broken after the mortar sets, it never reunites. The only safe way to place a wall when the common mortar is used is by the scratch-coat method. This consists in allowing the first coat to become fully dry, having, however, scratched the surface of the plaster slightly soon after it is put on. When it is perfectly dry the second coat is placed, and when this is dry, a third (skim) coat may be added, which should be but little thicker than whitewash. This leaves the wall smooth and nearly white. However, many walls are now finished on the second coat which is left level but rough, and may be tinted by mixing coloring material with the mortar. The quality of the wall depends largely upon the mixing of the mortar and the amount of firm troweling which it receives. The fewer interstices between the particles of sand the better. Firm, persistent troweling tends to reduce interstices, and hence to make the wall firm and strong. Plastered walls are much strengthened by being painted, and wherever such painting is appropriate, as in the bathroom, wardrobe, and kitchen, they should receive two coats of light cream color or other warm-colored paint.
A new mixture, cement and hair, or wood-fiber, has been put on the market, and is likely to be used extensively, for when properly used a stronger, harder, and more durable wall is secured than by using the ordinary stone lime and sand mortar. This cement is sold under a variety of names, and is usually known by the builders under the generic name, adamant or adamant plaster. It is put up in barrel packages, and sells in central New York from $2 to $2.50 per barrel, wholesale. It is mixed in small quantities immediately before using, in the proportion of one of cement to two of sharp sand. One barrel suffices for thirty square yards of two-coat work, three-fourth-inch grounds being used; seven-eighth-inch grounds are required for three-coat work. As mortar made of this material sets quickly, the laths should be thoroughly wet before the mortar is applied, and the rooms should be closed while the work is progressing, or the mortar will harden too rapidly. Not only plastering mortar, but that used for other purposes which depends on cement for its binding force, should not be allowed to dry out rapidly.
One serious objection is urged against walls made of cement mortar,—it being said that they are so resonant as to be annoying. To overcome this objection the walls of one public building were covered with burlap and painted. Notwithstanding the objections raised against cement plastered walls, they are likely to come into common use, since they are so superior in hardness and durability to the old style wall.
Ordinarily, a full year should be allotted for building the house, and it should not be occupied until it has become thoroughly dried out. Perhaps this hint of the unsanitary condition of a damp house may be sufficient for the American. In Germany the law requires that a new house must have been completed a full half year before it may be occupied.