Prep Work for Walls, Ceilings and Wood Trim
All walls, ceilings and woodwork usually have some sort of imperfections. Either from wear and tear, peeling paint, failing drywall tape or left over flaws from the original builder of your home. These require some sort of prep work to fix these flaws. These flaws could either be damaged areas or Cosmetic.
BASIC PREP WORK includes damage-to-the-substrate areas such as nail holes, deep gouges, cracking and large humping nail-pops, stress cracks, failing drywall tape. All these are included in every proposal unless specified otherwise. Below is a picture of what a typical room with Basic Prep looks like:
COSMETIC PREP WORK includes skim coating imperfections that simply look bad. They include leftover roller or brush marks from the previous paint job, light surface scratches, small gouges, minor nail humps that are not cracking through, patchwork that looks smoother or raised in appearance, unsanded drywall mud, humps, lines and seams from the original drywall work, etc. These flaws can really stand out on a newly painted surface, especially if the paint has any shine to it such as eggshell.
To fix Cosmetic imperfections, it is just a matter of usually scraping the imperfection flush with the wall, applying joint compound spackle over the blemish and then sanding it smooth. This makes the imperfections disappear. The pictures below are some examples of extensive Cosmetic repairs. Most of these were left over from the builder, and the customers wanted them fixed. Cosmetic prep is an upgrade.
NAIL-POPS
A nail-pop is when the original drywall nail or screw comes “popping” back through the drywall. Sometimes the screw has only popped through a minimal amount over a long period of time. These usually only require the original nail to be reset. Other times, the more severe nail-pops require an additional screw to be placed right next to the original. The new screw is used to hold down the original one. To complete the repair, it is then patched, sanded flush, re-textured if necessary and finish painted
Cracks in walls and ceilings
The conventional repair process for fixing a crack includes digging it out, patching it with joint compound, taping it if necessary and then sanding smooth. Although this method of repair fixes the crack for now, it is susceptible to returning. There is no 100% guaranteed permanent fix, however we have a method of repairing these cracks that is unique in our industry. We call it the Selah Crack Repair. Our past experience with this method has proven to sufficiently repair most cracks permanently. They can not be guaranteed to never return again because sometimes there are bigger underlying issues that need to be addressed to stop the cracks. But the Selah Crack Repair process has a good track record of stopping most of them.
After the repair process is completed, we then re-texture (if necessary) and apply the finish paint.
Caulking
Caulking has two purposes. #1 it seals up your woodwork. #2 it makes your finished product look beautiful. We recommend a high quality caulk for normal applications. For stubborn areas that have a lot of movement (like the middle picture on the right), we recommend Big Stretch caulk. It adheres well and stretches with the crack to keep it closed.
Matching Texture
Sometimes your walls and ceilings have a unique texture. Whether it is sand swirl, orange peel, knock-down, popcorn, etc. It can usually be recreated to match the original texture. However, there is never a guarantee that it will match 100%, although 9 times out of 10, it comes so close that you can’t see the difference.
Eliminating Water Stains
After it is confirmed that the water stain is not an active water leak somewhere still causing damage, then we use a quality stain blocker to seal and eliminate the stain. Then we repair any drywall damage if there is any. Then we finish paint it.
