House Painting Yourself

Homeowners painting their own house often suffer from confidence problems in their ability. Some are all riled up to paint their house and start painting before they have fully planned everything out. Other people are worried that they cannot do advanced painting correctly and end up not using more creative situations. The family can paint the house without help from a Denver painting contractor. All you need to do is study some painting ideas and techniques.

After planning all the painting out, you need to make sure you have all the necessary tools. A Denver paint contractor will use roll brushes, hand brushes, paint and paper to keep the paint from spilling. Paint should fulfill its two roles:beauty and protection.

You can consult with the hardware store or a Denver painting contractor with a color chart to decide on colors and color schemes. A two-tone scheme is very attractive and not as hard as it sounds. Your colors can be matched to your yard, neighborhood, a creative theme, your furniture or architecture. If you are going for beauty over art, the two most important considerations in color are the architecture and interior of the home.

Then you need to pick a paint that protects well. The paint protects your exterior from weather and damage. So a good paint is waterproof, and will not flake or scratch easily. Simply adding coats is one way to get more protection but the best way is to get a good quality paint.

Before starting painting remove all the old paint. Paint stripping is a chore that can be left to a Denver painter. Do it yourselfers may want to just start painting without removing old paint. Doing this will cause the paint to peel. Spread paper to stop paint from getting on your interior or yard. The first coat of paint is called the primer. Primer makes paint stick to the walls better and increases the life of the paint job.

Always let a coat dry before applying another one and you will be able to do any interior or exterior paint job yourself. Commercial painting should be left to the professionals. Commercial buildings have to pass inspection, and in some places these painters need to be licensed or even union labor.

Feng Shui Interprets the Haunted House

When we think of a classic haunted house, images from the movies come up. Sometimes the haunted house is depicted as a dark, dingy, old, dilapidated house, secluded and covered with cobwebs. Oddly enough, these really are some of the "yin" attributes which can contribute to a house attracting a ghost.

In feng shui theory, all environments can be described as "yin" or "yang." Yang aspects are lively, bright, airy, cheerful and warm. But "yin" aspects include still, dark, cluttered, stuffy, cold, or damp. Houses that have several of these yin aspects on a chronic basis are more likely to attract or harbor spirits inside.

There are also exterior circumstances which can attract a ghost to a house. This includes a house that is within view of a cemetery. There is a Chinese slang term, where a cemetery is called a "night club," because at night the cemetery gets very lively.

Even bright, cheery, brand new houses can harbor a ghost if they happen to have been built on top of old burial sites or battlefields. As an example, the Chumash Indians spent a lot of time in many areas of Southern California. I have been to a number of homes throughout Southern California where the presence of a Chumash Indian spirit seemed likely. One client even told me that after everyone went upstairs to go to bed each night, she'd smell the smoke of a "peace pipe" from downstairs wafting its way upstairs!

Houses that were built right into a mountainside can also be considered too yin. And sometimes a house will attract a ghost simply because a past occupant may be very attached to the property even though they have died. One client of mine, who lives in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles, had an interaction with a ghost on her property shortly after the 1994 earthquake. When she described the physical appearance of the ghost to a long-time neighbor, the neighbor confirmed that it was the man who had built the house many years previous. Perhaps he was just checking on the status of the house.

Is there a remedy to eliminate a ghost? By eliminating all the yin characteristics of a house, sometimes the ghost will leave of its own accord.

Sometimes it takes a willful, meditative dialogue with the spirit before it departs. And there are also some special feng shui remedies which involve opening up a certain door in the house. This is based on a little-known calculation derived from the age of the house and its compass orientation.