I had gone into the kitchen update fully expecting to replace the countertops so I dribbled paint on them and had no concern for them whatsoever.
So follow this with the decision to keep the countertops and paint them. Need I say I thoroughly regret my earlier lack of care that resulted in swipes and sprinkles of primer and cabinet paint?
Note to self: Don’t ever assume you’re going to discard something until it’s discarded. Take great care while you’re working on things. Better to be careful now than sorry later.
The curse of poor workmanship – again
Don’t you just love it when someone smears thick blobs of raggedy caulk around and leaves them to dry. It only takes a moment to get a wet rag and wipe the excess off.
Once again I found myself wanting to strangle the person responsible for crappy work. Someone had smeared caulk ½” to ¾” up the wall and across the top of the backsplash of the countertop. Evidently no one had instructed that person on cutting a small hole on the end of the caulk tube, minimally applying caulk, and then wiping the excess when you overdo. Sheesh.
Come on folks – even a newbie can do a decent caulk install if they wipe up with a damp rag after it’s a applied. Who did this abominable level of work?
Fixing the mess
I spent the morning with a skill knife, window scraper (razor blade), putty knife, small screwdriver, and needle nose pliers removing the caulk that was on the top of the back splash and wiped up the wall.
Caulk is a serious adhesive so removing it removed the top layers of the drywall. Whenever drywall repairs get you down to paper it’s a multi-step process to fix the drywall before it’s safe to paint it.
- Sand it to remove as much loose paper as possible
- Apply primer to seal the exposed paper layers and allow it to dry
- Apply thin layers of drywall mud to level it and all the mud to dry
- Sand the drywall until it’s smooth (I like drywall sanding screens)
- Apply primer to the new drywall mud
- Paint
All these steps because someone thought applying thick lines of caulk and wiping it all over the place was a bright idea.
Razorblading my paint drips off the counters: 15 minutes. Removing caulk smeared all over the place: 4 hours. You tell me – what was the stupidest move?
