All Forum Posts by: Scott Le

Removing the tile is fairly straight forward.  It can be a little frustrating because there will be some stubborn tiles that you'll have to use a ton of force to dislodge from the ground, but it's doable.  I did about 700 SF of tile in about 3 hours, and like I said renting the tool from HD saved a ton of money.

I had pretty much the same situation.  I had to remove the tile over the terrazzo.  I actually was able to do it myself.  I rented this jackhammer like tool from HD.  Cost me like maybe $60 and took 2-3 hours to do the whole house.

The actual restoration of the floor was outsourced to a local contractor who did it for $2.75/SF.  Took him 3 days.  Most of my other bids were $3-$3.25/SF.  It's pricey but the floors were beautiful when they were done.

I agree that it shouldn't be a big deal if consecutive houses are the same color (albeit in different shades), but at the same time I really don't want to go pissing off the neighbors.  If my tenant is doing something they shouldn't be, then I'd want to be on good terms with the neighbors so that they'd tell me.  Frankly, a neighbor who goes off on my handyman (not even me, the actual owner) about a paint color is probably not the guy I want to be on's bad side anyway.

If the neighbor gives me or any of my workers guff again about my paint samples or anything else we are doing, then I am absolutely taking you up on your offer.  You'd think he'd be smart enough to realize that just mere fact that I'm having the house painted at all will bring up the value on his house by proxy.

The house on the other side of me is dark gray, so I'm basically opening up the same can of worms with the other neighbor if I went that route.  If I'm gunna make a neighbor mad, I might as well get my first choice of color (the green) with it, you know?  I'd prefer not to make any neighbors mad though.

 I like the brown color as well, but I hate it over solid block.  I've seen a few houses like that and they all look terrible.  It's great over stucco, but there's just something about solid block that makes all these usually nice colors seem really dim.

Avocado was actually the color I was going to use that the neighbor yelled at my handyman about haha.

This is a 1957 block home that I am planning to rent out once renovations are done (next week).  The original plan was to paint the exterior a light green with white fascia, but one of the neighbors supposedly harassed my handyman today because the sample of the green I put on the outside too closely resembles the shade of green on his house (they're different shades and he was totally out of line, but he's not totally without merit).  So now I'm having to reconsider the color.  The problem is I generally hate almost every color on these solid block homes (I tend to think most dark colors look really bad on block), and the green was the only one I've seen that I've liked.  

Any ideas (with pics if possible, esp. if the house was also a solid block like this one)? Fwiw, the opposite neighbors house is a dark grey.   

 Great post.  So if I shouldn't trust tape, what should I trust instead?  What should I get to cover the cabinets and bathroom fixtures?

At the very least, I should be able to go rent a pressure washer at HD and do that myself.  Whether or not I need to outsource the exterior remains to be seen.  It is only a one story home after all.  How bad could it be?

I liked Ben's idea to paint the trim and walls the same color.  It will certainly be easier on me since I don't have to worry about taping them and ruining them with splashing.  Plus judging from some pictures I've seen on Houzz, they actually turn out looking kinda cool.

I am only painting walls and trim, not the ceilings. It is a mid range SFH but maybe i could just paint the trim the same to make it easier. How bad could it be? I am just worried about proper prep, unevenness, or getting paint on the nice terrazzo floors i paid to restore. I also need to prime 2 of the rooms that are currently blue and pink, which is even more of a burden. I have minimal clue on how to do any of this.

Any advice for painting and pressure washing the exterior?

No lowes anywhere near me. Only home depot and sherwin. What should i expect to spend on 5 gallons?

I was originally going to outsource the interior and exterior paint, patching, and pressure washing for my 1200 SF SFH rental, but I ended up being way over budget on the rebuilding of a room and now am desperately trying to slash my remaining expenses. Given that the biggest expense I have left is that painting, it seems like a natural place to start.

I have never really painted before.  I have been watching some Youtube videos, but I wanted to see if anybody here has any tips, good tutorials they've found online, a list of materials to buy, etc? I'm kinda nervous about having to paint a whole house by myself with no experience.  Feels like it would be way too easy for me to screw something up or take like a whole week to do it.  I am considering hiring a friend of mine who is a handyman to help me, but like I said I'm several thousand over budget already and am basically in damage control at this point.