​Guest House - Before and After

[Jason Clark]

Hi All,

I just wanted to share a quick post showing some before and after pics of a 1b/1b guest house that I rehabbed over the weekend. For the last 5 years the tenant was a retired man in his 60s who smoked 2 packs a day inside of the unit and totally destroyed it with filth and stink. He died after Christmas so I was debating what to do with the place, either rip out the walls or try to clean and paint to see if that works. It was so nasty inside. At one point I was debating actually tearing the whole thing down and rebuilding but it doesn't bring much rent so it wasn't worth the cost.

I wish words could describe how disgusting the place was. It was not just dirty but it had to verge on being a health hazard. The air was hard to breathe and it made people who were in there for more than 15 mins sick so they would leave. It gave me a headache but rental income is a great motivator so I sucked it up and marched ahead.

As you can see in the pics the walls were covered in nicotine. The week prior a friend tried to TSP the walls but all it did was smear and make a mess. You can see where pictures were hung on the walls leaving original paint surrounded by yellow nicotine. There was carpet on top of old carpet that had never been vacuumed, it reeked.

I bought some Zinsser BIN, a disposable respirator, some brushes and went to work. For anybody that is debating between Kilz or BIN I highly recommend BIN. After I was done there was no hint of smoke smell, in fact all I could smell was the new carpet. It also leaves a little bit of a shine on the primer so it looks like paint if you decide to just leave the primer (which is what I did). The new tenant can paint if they want to.

The Goods:

Here is a close up of the old wall and the primer. It really seals the nicotine in. This is what 5 years of smoke will do to a wall. In fact this is the kitchen wall in the next room, not even the main room.

I said this would be short and rambled on but dang it was a lot of work, new appliances, doors painted, new fan, etc. Got a new tenant moving in today! She doesn't smoke. I hope. Here are the afters that I am quite proud of!

Kitchen

Thanks for following along. Cheers!

[Jason Clark]

Thanks @Michael Clanton. Originally I planned to use Kilz but when I went to Home Depot they had BIN also. I did a quick search on my phone for "Kilz vs BIN" (gotta love technology these days) and many of the reviews from painting pros all said that Kilz would probably work on nicotine but BIN would definitely work. So I bought the BIN. It was a little more expensive but it did the job and saved me from having to tear out walls to the studs. It's really watery which made it roll on easy making quick work of the job. It dried fast as well so I did two coats just to be safe.