Cutting Tile as a Form for Tile Installation

You’ll likely need to cut all of the tiles around the perimeter of the floor or wall to make them fit, and you will need to notch around objects like doorjambs and make holes for pipes and other penetrations. Many first-time tile setters worry more about tile cutting than anything else, but it’s actually a fairly easy job. There are many different tools you can use, and none of them – even the power tools – are difficult to operate. Just make sure you always wear eye protection when cutting tile using any of these methods. Wear respiratory protection when doing any power cutting.

Using a Snap Cutter

A snap cutter is inexpensive and it isn't a power tool, so it’s a good choice for beginners. However, it can make only straight cuts and it doesn't work on stone, porcelain, or some other extremely hard tiles, including many quarry tiles. It’s also difficult to use a snap cutter for cuts near the edge of a tile.

Mark a cut line on the tile with a wax pencil. Position the tile firmly against the snap cutter’s front guide so the cut will be square. Lift up the handle and push or pull it to score a line across the tile. It’s best to score a single, continuous line, but if you score an incomplete line, go over it again. Allow the wings of the cutter to rest on both sides of the scored line. Push down on the handle, and the tile will snap in two. If the cut is within an inch or so of the edge of the tile, use of tile nibbler to break away the excess material little by little. Brush away all debris from the base of the snap cutter before making the next cut.

Using a Rod Saw

If your cut isn't straight and you’re working with a soft ceramic tile, you can make the cut freehand using a hack saw loaded with a rod saw blade. Mark the tile with the cut you need and then hold the tile firmly in place on a work surface so that the area so be cut is overhanging the edge. Saw with steady, gentle strokes.

Color Profiles for Handyman Painting

Yellow. Yellow, the color of the sun, is an energetic color that can lift the spirits and warm a room. It can also enhance concentration and speed metabolism. While it’s associated with happiness, yellow is also disturbing when overused. Studies have shown that people lose their tempers and babies cry more often in yellow rooms.

Blue. Considered the most relaxing color in the spectrum, blue causes the body to release tension. But it can also create a sense of formality and be cold or even depressing. Blue has been found to be an appetite suppressant, so it should be used only as an accent in areas where you prepare or serve food.
Painted a vivid yellow, the all contrasts with adjacent white surfaces to magnify the room’s sunlit quality. Always clean and refreshing, aqua reflects the calming influence of blue. A range of blues creates a tranquil bedroom, highlighted by white furniture and trim.

Green. The easiest color on the eye, green is both calming and refreshing, providing a feeling of renewal and harmony. It has also been associated with feelings of safety. It is more versatile than blue because it is a blend of warm and cool colors (yellow and blue). One of the basic hues of nature, green is effective in almost any room, but particularly appropriate in kitchens and dining rooms.

Violet. Like green, violet mixes warm and cool colors. It combines the calming effect of blue with the energy of red. Violet is associated with royalty and luxury, but – perhaps because it is rare in nature – it can feel artificial. It is the favorite color of many young children.

White. Although white is non-color, it does impart a specific mood of cleanness, purity, and innocence. White reflects all light and is a good choice for rooms with odd or irregular features, because minor flaws will nearly disappear in the absence of color. For anyone who finds imperfections stressful, this can have a direct effect on mood.

When painting a house, you need to think about the following color profiles and decide on which color is perfect for the kind of home environment you live in.

Altering Moods with Color

With only paint colors, you can modify the sense of a room and the atmosphere of the space. In choosing colors, one must consider how the area will be utilized. Will the area be utilized for work, amusement, studying, relaxing, or leisure? Will it be a private, family or public place? More importantly, how’d you desire people to experience in these places? Comfortable, vibrant or someplace stuck in between?

Color Profiles

According to research, a color communicates its own fashionable psychological outcome. One can have an improved ability of building rooms that do not only appear good but experience right through perceiving how the brain and body might react to particular colors.

RED. Red is a psychologically passionate color that intensifies body temperature and heart rate. Energy, effectiveness, jeopardy, and passion are always connected with this color. Red is also a color that usually commands interest. According to studies, the color red has showed to encourage appetite which makes it a fine choice for dining areas. Pink or burgundy which are examples of shades of red, are easier on the body and the eyes than the highly simulating bright red.

ORANGE. Orange still offers the feeling of warmth and forms wisdom of delight. It is less insistent than red. It increases mental activity because it enhances the supply of O2 to the brain. Orange gives a refreshing and friendly atmosphere in its various differences.

In a high energy space for a kid, a neural mat and light green bureau balance the strength of intense orange walls. In a powder area, a temperate orange is appealing and welcoming. This occasionally tricky area is a great place to experiment with lively colors. Painting red in a living area should maintain the conversation bubbly. The custom carpet contests with the dark blue fireplace. Slow starters in the morning can get to moving swiftly in a red bedroom.

House painting Pros and Cons

Primer

Primer is the key to meet paint finishes; it creates a bond between the surface you want to paint and the paint finish you are applying. The right primer creates a solid, nonporous surface for the base coat by sealing new drywell, new piaster, concrete, raw wood, and any repairs you have made with caulking or spackle, if you miss the step, your paint job will be uneven and unpredictable. Primer should never be used as a base coat; however, if you want to apply a dark base coat, your primer can be tinted to half the formula of the paint color. This will reduce the number of coats required to achieve the desired depth of color.

Primer is available in acrylic, alkyd, and latex varieties; each one has its specific uses. Latex primer must be used over new drywall, as an oil-based (alkyd) primer will make the drywall’s surface bumpy. For new wood, use alkyd primer, as water-based primer will soak into the wood and raise the grain, making an uneven surface. Thanks to advances in manufacturing, it’s possible now to buy high-adhesion primers specifically designed to cover metals, ceramics, laminates, and most other shiny surfaces. These primers are wonderful because they save you a lot of hard work; for example, you no longer need to remove all the old varnish from a table or chair before you repaint, if you use the proper primer. Check with a knowledgeable sales-person to make sure you are buying the right primer for your project.

Shellac

Shellac is an excellent primer for plaster and raw wood. Apply with a foam brush to seal in the wood resins found throughout the wood but especially at the knots. The resins will bleed through your paint finish unless you seal them first. Shellac is alcohol-based and dries very quickly. It’s toxic, so wear a mask and work in a well-ventilated area…..

Latex paint

Latex paint is water-based, and contains vinyl and acrylic resins. The better the quality, the more acrylic the pain contains. Latex paint is tinted to your color choice at the point of hardware store using a recipe of concentrated color pigments called universal colorants, that are both water and oil-soluble. The same tints are used to color both types of paint. It is generally sold by the quart or gallon.

Oil Paint (Alkyd)

Due to its oil base, this paint is smooth and easy to apply and covers the surface well. It is tinted to your color choice at the store a recipe of universal colorants. If it is available in pints, quarts and gallons.

Specialty Tile

Mosaics

Any grid of smallish tiles that work together to create a whole is a mosaic. In some mosaics, the tiles function like the pixels of a digital image, creating a mural effect. Other mosaics are composed of an eye-catching pattern of colors. Even a field of like-colored squares is considered a mosaic if the tiles are 3 inches or smaller.

You’ll find mosaics made of virtually any tile material, from glazed ceramic to natural stone, colored glass to metal, or combinations thereof. And the tiles or a mosaic aren’t always square. They can be hexagons, rectangles, circles, random shards, or even the shapes of little fish or vegetables. The more irregular the shapes, the thicker the grout lines likely have to be. Tiny, opaque glass mosaics are particularly popular now, as are mixed textures – smooth glass with rough stone, for example. Another intriguing look is that of a river rock mosaic of whole round stones, an inch or two in diameter, packed tightly and grouted.

Almost all mosaics are sold already assembled on a mesh, paper, or rubber backing, typically as 12-by-12-inch squares, making installation not much more difficult for standard tiles. Some prefab mosaics are specially designed as borders or inlays for floors. Of course, you can also use individual tiles to create a custom mosaic in any artistic pattern you can dream up.

Decorative

Retailers use this term for highly ornamental tiles – anything beyond the basics. A decorative tile might be brightly colored, painted with an image or pattern, filigreed, embossed, or otherwise textured. It might even be encaustic tile, with an embossed decorative pattern filled with clays of different colors (a process invented by 12th-century Cistercian monks).

Use decorative tiles en masse to create striking focal points, or sparingly as accents to dress up a field of simpler tiles. Either method is an effective way to create something special when you’re tiling on a budget.
Trim Pieces

Trim tiles are the solutions to three-dimensional problems: the edges and corners of tile jobs. Bullnose tiles provide a finished edge where a tile field ends, chair rails offer a cap for the top edge of a tile wainscot, and V-caps finish all the edges of countertops. Baseboards are the finishing touch where walls meet floors, while corner pieces are used for outer and inner corners of walls, fireplaces, and outer complex surfaces. You may also find crown moldings, picture frames, and any number of other useful shapes.

Some tile lines include matching trim. Others come in limited configurations, while still others are available only in  field tiles. If you’re using tiles that have no matching trim pieces, look for complementary trim from another line.

Home Painting Sources with a Home Painter

Wherever you live, there’s sure to be an abundance of decorating books and style magazines available, which are always chock full of ideas and advice on how to create the room of your dreams.  You’ll probably find that you are repeatedly drawn to certain colors, patterns and themes. Keep track of your favorites by starting a file or scrapbook of rooms and ideas that delight you; it’s easy to tear out or photocopy of rooms and ideas that delight you; it’s easy to tear out or photocopy a page of rooms and the painting style you love.

Also, look for the scrapbook of rooms and ideas delight you; it’s easy to tear out or photocopy a page of rooms you love. Also, look for the do-it-yourself projects and workshops in these publications. Their step-by-step instructions are another great resource; even if you don’t want to recreate one of the featured looks exactly, the information will no doubt prove invaluable for future projects.

Home Shows

With more and more people now participating in their own home’s renovation, many towns and cities now hold annual home shows which showcase new products and decorating ideas. These shows often offer free do-it-yourself workshops, and there are always plenty of demonstrations. If you go, you’re likely to meet people who have the same questions as you, and it’s always fun to hear about what someone else did with his tiny bathroom, odd-shaped kitchens, or cathedral ceiling.

Public Spaces and Private Homes

Always keep you mind and eyes open when visiting friend’s homes and public places such as theaters, shops, restaurants, and even museums – there’s an idea to be found in every corner. For example, because restaurants like to keep up with the times, they change their décor frequently, and offer a wealth of contemporary design inspirations.

Or course, many themes may be too dramatic for your home, but you can learn a lot by noticing the fundamental ways the designer sets the mood; pay attention to the lighting or the color scheme in addition to the food. There’s no harm in copying decorating ideas when it comes to paint, because paint finishes will always look unique to your home.
Even if your friend has ragged her living room walls in yellow, your raspberry-ragged bedroom will have a character all its own.

Television

Many decorating and lifestyle shows on television walk you through the process of pulling a room together. These shows are packed with ideas and projects for every home decorator, and the projects are usually accompanied by step-by-step instructions. So, set your VCR to tape your favorite shows and add these to your idea library.

Tightening Air Leaks and Start Caulking with Handyman

Leaky windows could account for as much as 35 percent of your home’s heat loss this winter. Check your windows for drafts on a windy day by moving a lighted candle around the window edges. While tacked-on spring-metal weather stripping lasts the longest, self-stick foam and taped-rolled vinyl and felt are easier to install. There are a lot of information about this process at www.handymansanantonio.com.

These interior weather-stripping steps generate few savings when gaps and cracks in your home’s exterior are left unattended. Check around door and window frames and wherever dissimilar materials meet, such as framing and foundation. Clean out any caulk or sealant and replace with new; check package instructions to determine which type suits your needs. Remember to wear gloves and wash up carefully afterward.

Start Caulking

Take a trip down the caulk aisle in any hardware store, and you will see a multitude of caulks and sealants crowding the shelves. Peek at the price tags. You will find they can cost you a little or a lot, depending on what type of job you’re doing and how much sealant you need.

• If you’re not sure what to use, silicone caulk is always a safe choice. After all, it remains flexible and impervious to water for up to 30 years. However, because it can be expensive, you may not want to plug your whole house with it.
• A more savvy approach is to save silicone for the small areas where you need exceptional adhesion and elasticity (such as around showers) and to buy cheaper caulks that will work as well for other jobs.
• Acrylic latex caulks are easy to use. When used inside, they last 2 to 10 years. Butyl rubber caulk is very durable for outdoor use, but application and cleanup can be difficult. The seal can last up to 10 years.
• Siliconized acrylic caulks are a hybrid. Like acrylic, they’re easy to apply and easy to clean up. Like silicone, they last for 20 to 30 years.
• Urethane foam, packaged in aerosol cans, expands after release, filling large and hard-to-reach gaps handily. Use around electrical outlets and new windows. The cost is high, and gloves must be worn during applications.

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