May 3, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of the RepcoLite Home Improvement Show, sponsored by Benjamin Moore, Dan shares personal anecdotes about challenging first impressions and provides expert advice on painting your front door to enhance curb appeal. He covers essential tips for choosing the right day, gathering supplies, and applying paint. Additionally, Dan features an interview with Barbara Klein, a decorative painter and former respiratory therapist, who discusses her transition into the world of faux finishes, furniture refinishing, and the influence of her father's carpentry skills on her work.00:00 Introduction and Personal Anecdotes00:17 The Importance of First Impressions05:28 Making a Great First Impression with Your Home07:24 Choosing the Right Day for Painting09:10 Gathering Supplies for the Project12:41 Prepping and Painting the Door16:01 Pro Tips for a Perfect Finish18:44 Interview with Barbara Klein20:12 Transition from Respiratory Therapy to Decorative Painting21:13 Joining the International Decorative Artisans League22:08 Techniques and Tools in Faux Finishing24:14 Challenges in the Medical Field26:28 The Joy of Transforming Homes with Paint28:30 Ceiling and Large-Scale Projects33:02 Furniture Transformation and Foil Techniques35:23 Legacy of Carpentry and Personal Reflections38:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, good morning everybody. Happy Saturday. Happy Saturday. Indeed, I
hope you all had a great week. Hope you're pumped
for the weekend. I am. I got to get my
sprinkler pump working this weekend, so I'm pumped for the weekend. Yeah,
let's just leave that there. You're listening to the Repcolite
Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And what I
(00:22):
want to start with today is this. I have to
be one of the worst first impressions people that I know.
I think I'm the worst, you know. To be honest,
I'm pretty sure i'm the worst.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Once people get to know me, if they take the time,
you know, to get to know me, after that initial
ridiculous meeting that we have, they usually realize I'm all right.
You know, I've literally had people, In fact, this should
tell you everything you need to know. I've literally had people,
after meeting me for a third or fourth time, say
you know what, You're actually fine. I always hear the
(00:56):
surprise in their voice when they say it. They never
saw it coming, not from that first interaction. They didn't
think I'd be fine at all, but they're surprised. Three
or four meetings later to realize, you know, I'm actually okay.
And when whenever they do that, whenever they you know,
express that surprise to me, I can always think back
to the very first interaction that I had with them.
(01:19):
You know, I don't remember everything. My memory is pretty good.
It's you know, in certain regards. In this regard, it's flawless.
I catalog and chronicle every ridiculous first meeting that I
have with people because they're so horribly painful. For some reason,
my mind likes to collect those like baseball cards. Anyway,
(01:41):
whenever they express surprise that I'm actually okay, I can
always think back to the first meeting that I had
with them. Like the lady at church you know here,
just to give you an example, a lady at church
who came up and introduced herself to me one Sunday.
She said, hey, hello, I just want to introduce myself
because our kids always do stuff together at church, they're
(02:01):
always serving. Just wanted to say hello, you know, normal
human interaction. In that instance, I actually talked. I did
alright with that, and maintained a conversation for you know,
maybe a minute and a half or so, and I
was feeling pretty good about myself. But then as we
were kind of wrapping things up, I smiled and I said,
(02:21):
very warmly, thank you for letting me introduce yourself to me.
And my daughter, who was there for the whole thing,
is still laughing about the look on that poor lady's
face as she, you know, walked back to her car,
just just kept looking over her shoulder back at me
to see if I was real or something. You know,
she was completely fluw mixed. She didn't know what to
say to my ridiculous statement. You know, someday I'm going
(02:44):
to meet her and it's going to be like the
third or fourth interaction, and she'll probably say, you know what,
You're actually fine. Another one at Grand Valley. I love
this one because it was so painful physically and you
know what, emotionally, I don't know, it's just painful. It
was painful socially and physically. Anyway, I'm in a class
(03:05):
at Grand Valley and I introduced myself to, you know,
just a whole group of people. You know, we're just
starting the semester, and I stand up and for some reason,
I'm going to shake hands, you know, I'm just talking
to people. I'm doing everything right, is what I'm thinking.
You know, I'm not shrinking from physical contact. I'm shaking hands,
I'm making eye contact, I'm announcing you know who I am,
(03:28):
and all the things you're supposed to do when you
meet people. And I'm doing that, and I'm feeling pretty
good about myself, except for the fact that I leaned
on the desk, you know, the desktop, to reach out
and shake somebody's hands. And this desk was designed by somebody,
some sadistic person who only put legs under the chair,
(03:49):
you know, that was the support system for this desk
that we would sit at. The chair had four legs
under it and the little tabletop none. So when I
leaned on that, you can only imagine what happened. I
went tipping forward. The desk went flying across the room,
knocking over other desks. It was chaos, you know, for
about ten minutes or so. As people were laughing, you know,
(04:10):
as the lecture starts, people are still laughing, and I'm
sure they're laughing about me. Later on, I'm doing a
group project with one of those people and I get
that same old standard response, you know, the guy says, hey,
you know what you're actually all right, You're actually fine,
you know, I'm actually fine, am I though? Am I
really fine?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I wish those were my only two instances of that,
but I've lived an entire lifetime of them, you know.
And maybe not when I was a baby, you know,
maybe I could do all right then, But at least
fifty of my fifty two years have been painful first impressions.
And if you don't believe me, If you don't believe me,
(04:50):
come to some repcolite events sometime and find me. I'm
usually there, start a conversation and just wait for it.
Bring your popcorn. Nine times out of ten, I'm gonna
do or say something appol ly ridiculous, and then watch
my face because it'll register how ridiculous I've been, and
then it just gets worse. All right, So do that,
all right? First impressions they're not, and never have been
(05:10):
my strong suit. And that brings me to the paint point.
And of course there's no way I'm going to try
to give you advice on, you know, making a good
first impression in a social setting. That's a mystery to me.
That's that's a treasure chest I will never be able
to unlock. You know, I'm never going to get there,
but I can talk about first impressions on another level,
(05:31):
on the home level. And when it comes to our homes,
the first impression pretty much every guest, visitor, traveling salesperson,
you name it, every passerby the first impression they have
of our home, it's usually our front door. You know,
people take in and check out all different aspects of
our homes exterior. I get that, but the primary focal
(05:52):
point is always that front door. Even if people don't
use that door as the main entrance, it's still the
part of the house that first draws your eye. And
we know that's true because when we walk past houses,
that is what we notice. I don't know if it's
just because normally they have, you know, a bright pop
of color there compared to the rest of the home.
I don't know what it is about it, maybe some
(06:14):
psychological thing about the door and the entrance to the home,
but that's where our eyes are drawn as we walk
past houses, as we unless it's dark, unless it's evening
and dark and the windows are open, then everybody looks
inside the house. Right. We try to act like we're
not doing that, but we're all scoping out their decor
or trying to figure out what's on TV or something
(06:34):
like that. But if it's normal, you know, if it's normal,
if it's daytime, you're generally checking out that front door,
you know, and that front door is so important. It
sets the tone for the entire exterior of the home.
A new paint job and a perfect color on that
front door can dramatically boost the curb appeal, and honestly,
it can even make your home look better maintained and
(06:56):
more valuable, all for the cost of a quart of
paint and a little bit of time. So painting your
front door it's easily one of the fastest and most
affordable ways to freshen up your home's exterior. And that's
really important, you know. Right now, in an economy where
everybody's you know, a little bit up in the air,
not sure where things are going. Maybe you've got remodels
that you'd like to do, but they're kind of on
(07:16):
pause right now. This is a project you can jump into,
you can feel good about, and it's going to have
a huge impact for very little money. All right, let's
get to the project. And to begin with, you need
to start by picking the right day to do it.
And there are a number of things to think about
when I say look for the right day. First off,
you want to look for a day when the temperatures
are somewhere between fifty and eighty five degrees. And yeah,
(07:39):
I know that's a crazy big range, but I'm giving
it because there are always people out there who want
to know how hot can it be when I put
the paint on? You know, how hot before it's too
hot if you're one of those people. The eighty five
is too hot if you're using latex paint. But with
that said, it's going to be ideal if you can
(08:00):
work in temperatures a little bit below that. All right,
So work in the right temperature range. That's first. Second,
choose a day when it's not too windy, right, too
much wind can cause the paint to dry too quickly. Third,
you've got to choose a day when the humidity is
in the forty to seventy percent range. That's ideal, that's
what you're looking for. Fourth, choose a day when rain
isn't predicted for the next twenty four hours. And fifth, oh,
(08:22):
my goodness, who believed there were five points I was
going to make about choosing the right day. Fifth, and
this one's not really a weather condition, and it's not
so much about picking the right day, it's about working
in the right time frame. What I'm getting at is,
don't work in the direct sunlight. The heat, just like
the wind, can cause your paint to dry too quickly.
(08:42):
And similarly, don't start painting a surface that's recently been
exposed to direct sunlight, or at least check that surface
temperature before you start. A door that's in the shade
now but that's been exposed to the sun for hours
can often be way too hot and it's going to
cause the paint to dry quickly, all right, So pay
attention to weather, can do the predictions that are coming,
and the surface temperature of the material that you're painting.
(09:06):
Keep all of that stuff in mind. Pick the right
day and the right time to do your work, all right. Next,
you've got to gather your supplies, all right. And I've
got all of this online at repco light dot com,
backslash front doors if you want to go and check
it out, if that's just easier than listening to me,
or if you want to double check you're not taking
your notes, maybe you didn't have your little Repcolllite Home
(09:27):
Improvement show notepad out ready to go, or your pen
was dry. It's frustrating you licked the end of it
still didn't work well, you couldn't find another pen. I
don't know, I don't know. I don't know what I'm
even talking about first impressions. You know, this isn't your
first impression of me. But that's the kind of thing
I do. In a first impression. I ramble, and when
(09:49):
I realize I'm off trail, I ramble even further and faster,
thinking that that's somehow going to help me. Anyway. If
you don't have notes, you're not taking notes, and you
need notes, head to Repcolight dot com, backslash front doors
and you'll find everything there, all right, So gather your supplies.
You're going to need a good cleaner like TSP tri
(10:09):
sodium phosphate. Crudcutter will work. Don dish soap will work.
Get a good cleaner, Get some two twenty grit sandpaper.
You probably want to grab some painter's tape, maybe frog tape,
whatever you like to work with. Get a good masking
tape though, and then a high quality angled brush, you
know angled sash brush and a microplush roller cover all right,
So get all of those things, and of course you'll
(10:31):
need a tray and all the things that you'd need
to make the roller cover work, a little frame. You
can't use the roller cover without a frame. You know,
you can't pinch it between your fingers and make it work.
Need the frame. So get all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
When it comes to the paint, I would recommend Benjamin
Moore's Aura Exterior in a soft gloss that would work
really well. Benjamin Moore's Regal Select Exterior that would also
work really well. Both of those are going to offer
incredible durability, rich color. It's going to retain the color,
it's not going to fade very quickly, and it's going
to really make the door look great. So those would work.
(11:03):
Repcolites and Dura is another option that will hold up
just like those Benjamin Moore products. So three different options there. Again.
That's all at repcolite dot com. Backslash front Doors. All
of those recommendations are there. You can check them out,
all right. So you've got all of that stuff together
right now, it's time to actually start prepping the door
and doing the work and I think probably what is
(11:25):
the prudent thing to do is to take a break
right now, play some commercials, and then actually get to
the project itself, the work of the project on the
other side. So stick around, hang with me. We'll be
back in just a minute. And we're back here listening
to the Repcolite Home improvement show is sponsored by Benjamin Moore,
(11:48):
and we're kind of in the middle of a front
door repaint project. I'm basically trying to walk you through
all the things that you need to know to pull
this project off flawlessly, perfectly, beautifully, And really I should
have said this much earlier in the show. But just
because you're maybe not interested in painting your front door
doesn't mean that all of this info is worthless. You know,
(12:10):
don't tune it out. Most of this stuff applies to
pretty much any painting project, so it's incredibly valuable for everybody.
Everybody out there listening, this is gold. So stay tuned in,
hang on my every word like it's honey from the comb.
All right. In the last segment, I talked about gathering
your supplies and I made some paint recommendations. If you
(12:31):
missed any of that, and you'd like a full guide
for painting your front door, Just head to repcolite dot
com backslash front Doors. You can get one for free
right there. All right, Once you've got your supplies and
your paint, it's time to prep the door. You're going
to start by removing the hardware if you can. If
you can't do that, that's fine. Just tape around it
and cover it over really well that way. Once you've
(12:53):
got that done, wash the door thoroughly with TSP or
whatever cleaner you picked. And you're doing this to remove
any grease, residue things like that. Even a brand new,
pre prime door needs a good cleaning, so make sure
you do that washing and then rinse it well with
clean water. After that's dry, lightly scuff sand the surface
with your two twenty grit sandpaper and then feather out
(13:14):
any areas where old paint may have peeled so that
you can smooth that transition out and make sure that
any paint that's left on the door is not even
close to peeling. All the paint that stays on the door,
if it's been painted before, needs to be stuck down
really well. So if you've got peeling areas, really work
them over a little bit to make sure that you've
got all the peeling paint off. Once you've done all
(13:35):
of that and you've done that sanding, wipe the whole
door down with a damp cloth to remove your dust. Now,
if you've got bear metal or bare wood in any
spots at that point, you do need to spot prime
those areas. Metal doors especially are going to need a
rust inhibitive primer, so be sure to prime those bear
spots if you've got them. Now, once you've done that,
you're ready to paint. And I'm going to walk you
(13:55):
through the order of how you would paint the door
if you've got inset panels or something like that. And
I know this is going to probably be confusing on
the radio, so again head to repco light dot com
backslash front Doors and you can see what I'm talking about.
But anyway, if you've got inset panels, that's where you
want to start, and you're gonna brush carefully into the
(14:15):
corners and the edges. Then you're gonna use a microplush
roller cover to roll the panels themselves. And something that
works beautifully for projects like this are the Wooster Jumbo
coders I talk about them all the time on the show.
They're four inch mini rollers, and what sets them apart
from other mini roller systems is that the little Jumbo
Coder covers match the larger wooster covers exactly, you know,
(14:37):
the same nap, the same materials, all of that. So
basically that means you can roll part of the door
with a larger cover if you want to, and then
the smaller sections with a Jumbo coder and the way
the cover leaves off the paint will be identical no
matter which cover you use. That's really important and really cool.
So check out those Jumbo coders. They're definitely worth picking up,
all right. So you roll the panels on the door
(14:58):
if you've got them. Once you've done that, you roll
the mullions. Now those are the vertical sections between the panels.
After that it's time to paint the rails, which are
the horizontal pieces on the door. And once you've done that,
you roll the outside edges. All of that is going
to just be the best order in which to paint
that door. And again I've got all of that at
repco light dot com. Backslash front doors. Everybody can say
(15:21):
it from memory right now, Repco Light dot com backslash
front doors. Check that out all right. As you're doing
your painting, plan your timing carefully. You know you picked
the right day. Plan your timing carefully. Ideally you're going
to be putting your first coat on around eight or
nine in the morning something like that. You want the
do to be you know, off the door, or you
know the door to be dry before you start. But
(15:42):
if the sooner you can start, the better. Let it
drive for about four hours after you've painted it, and
then apply the second coat, probably around noon one o'clock
or so. And then after that final code, try to
keep the door open as long as possible, hopefully till
about seven pm. And that's going to give the paint
time to set up properly and prevent it from sticking
when you close it. All right, last thing I got
(16:02):
for you are just a handful of tips pro tips
to get the best results possible. First thing, do not
skimp on the roller cover, the applicator or the brush,
you know, whatever you're using to apply it. You know
you probably need both of those. Don't cheap out on
those things. We talk about it on the show all
the time, and I talk about it because I've seen
(16:22):
it happen so many times. People will try to save
a little bit of money, which is completely understandable. I'm
in that boat most of the time, but I speak
from experience. Normally I try to skimp out and save
money on things that I shouldn't be saving money on,
and I always always regret that decision. In this instance,
this is absolutely one of those that you'll regret. Don't
(16:44):
skimp out on the roller cover, don't skimp out on
the brush. Get good tools for this, especially the roller cover.
You know, a cheap roller cover can be two to
three bucks. Maybe an expensive roller cover, top of the
line roller cover is going to be five bucks, you know,
five and a half bucks. You don't want to save
two dollars and fifty cents and have the tool that's
putting your high quality paint on. You don't want that
(17:06):
tool to produce results that don't look good. So use
a good roller cover. I'd recommend the Wooster microplush roller covers.
Love those. You're going to get an almost sprayed like
finish on the door if you use that. And the
other great thing about those Wooster microplush covers is that
they come in the Wooster Jumbo coder size, which is
the four inch or the six inch mini rollers, and
(17:26):
they also come all the way up in a nine
inch of fourteen inch and eighteen inch cover. Whatever size
cover you'd want to use on the door, even if
you have to mix sizes, you'll have the exact same cover,
the exact same roller, nap and finish, so you're not
going to have any differences when you switch your roller cover.
So Wooster Microplush roller covers, that's the way to go.
Another thing, make sure you're choosing the right paint for
(17:47):
the project. Again, I recommended Benjamin Moore's Aura Exterior, Benjamin
Moore's Regal Select Exterior, and Repcolites Endure. All of those
are going to hold up really well. They'll be tough
on the door, they'll hold up to whatever you throw
at it. And also they're going to resist fading better
than a lot of other products out there, So keep
those things in mind. Last little tip, if you've got
(18:07):
any questions at all, if you're getting ready to start
this project, just swing out to any Repco Light store,
tell us what you're working on, and we'll walk you
through all the ins and outs. Because I can't cover
every situation that you might run into on that door.
I can't do that on the radio, but they can
certainly help you with your exact situation in the store
at any Repco Light. So stop out and see us.
(18:29):
And that's pretty much it. With a little bit of
prep work and some good products, you can completely transform
the look of your home for a minimal investment. You know,
Quarta paint and some supplies. It's only going to take
you a couple hours and you're gonna have a big
payoff at the end. All right, let's take a break.
When we come back, I'll be in the studio with
Barbara Klein, a decorative painter who's got a lot of
(18:49):
great stories. We're gonna get to that in just a minute.
Stick around and we're back. You're listening to the Repco
LIGHTE Home Improvement Show sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And right
now I want to play a portion of a conversation
that I had earlier this week with Barbara Klein, owner
(19:12):
of Creative Impressions. Now, Barbara's a decorative artist and she's
been doing all sorts of faux finishes on walls since
the late nineteen nineties. Now what I'm going to air
is just a small portion of the full conversation. You
can find the entire interview on repco Lights YouTube series
The Interviews, So by all means check that out. But
for right now, here's Barbara. So let's go way back,
(19:34):
before faux finishes, before doing decorative walls, doing all of
those things, you were in respiratory therapy. What in the
world was that jump like to go from medicine to painting.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Well, it was I've always had a creative background. It's
always something I've dabbled with, and respiratory was one thing
that was a two year school for me. It was easy,
it was to make good money, but it just wasn't
(20:09):
filling my soul, if you will. And it just the
medical field just got too complicated.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And how long were you doing this respiratory therapy stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I was doing it for over twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Years, oh so good, long time.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
And teaching CPR as well. And just in nineteen ninety
eight I took a couple of little decorative painting classes
in a store in a city near me and got
the bug. Started doing it for myself, started doing it
(20:48):
for family and friends.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And they said, you know, you're really good at this.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
You should consider this. Being a business and having young children,
it was something that I could work my schedule around
shechem in daycare and I actually did both jobs for
a while.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
The respiratory therapy and the yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And trying to do the folk finishing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
And then in ninety nine I joined an organization called
at the time it was called SALLY and then it
changed to IDELL, which is SALLY was Stencil's Artisans League, Okay,
because back in the eighties stenciling was very.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Big, and it was the thing in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, and then people started incorporating full finishes with their stenciling.
So the organization regrouped in the mid two thousands and said,
you know, we be we need to be more inclusive,
and so IDELL is actually International Decorative Artisans League. Through
that I have learned from the best in the industry.
(21:58):
And I don't any job I do, you know, I
take it very seriously.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So I want training.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I want to know when I'm giving my clients.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So when you started this, what was the big faux
finishing thing going on? I mean way back, I mean
we're sponge painting, rag painting. I mean, is that what
we were doing at that point.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, yeah, but I learned through the years that yeah,
you might use a sponge, but you might use a rag.
But a true ful finished professional is it going to
allow you to see what tools used?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Okay, so when I did it, you could tell what
tools were used. You could even tell how I held it.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Right exactly, and that that's being having too much paint
on your tool and just going at it. So the
whole idea too, is a light touch, going easy on
putting the product on the tool. Even with stenciling, you
dip the tip of the brush, because it's a flat brush,
(23:06):
you dip the tip of the brush in the paint
and you off roll it on a piece of paper towel.
So what that does is it works that paint up
into the bristles. So as you're tapping or swirling your
brush into the stencil, the paint is gradually coming off.
It's not this big blob blob, and it prevents the
(23:26):
paint from bleeding.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Underneath the stencil.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Also, you spray the stencil with adhesive spray, so you
have a good stick, right.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I know that I've done that one before.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, but felt finishing has really evolved over the years,
and you might use a sponge and a granite technique
just because you're blending multiple colors to build the look
of stone or build the.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Look of brick.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
If you look at an actual piece of stone or brick,
there's a light, medium, and dark tone. So I've actually
mimicked like your wall behind you. I've actually replicated a
wall like that to look like actual brick.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You said that you just weren't feeling it in the
respiratory in the medicine, and you said medicine got more
complicated or I don't know if that was the word
you used for me.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
It became less about patient care and more about making money.
The hospitals started changing. Instead of nonprofit, they became more
money makers. And then the insurance companies changed in them
I guess the mid eighties to what they call a DRG,
and the DRG is they were dictating how long a
(24:48):
patient could stay in a hospital depending on what they
were there for.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Okay, we all heal.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Differently, and sometimes there's complications that prevent us from leaving
when the insurance companies want us to leave.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
And so with.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Hospital workers, we were beginning to be overworked, not compensated
for it, and it was for me. The reason I
got into it was for patient care.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Right, And now you feel like you're kind of short
shifting that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, we were just robots trying to get as many
treatments done in a day, not really being able to
spend the time with our patients like we should.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I also specialized in pediatrics.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
I worked with cystic fibrosis and asthmatic and I did
home teaching for the parents for these children and try
to teach them how to not only care.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
For their child, but to care for their home.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
With asthmatics, you have to set up your home differently
due to dust and carpets and smoking, and so I
was teaching as well as you know, doing the therapy.
So with respiratory therapy you're working with the heart and lungs,
so you're really a heart and lung specialist. I still
(26:08):
it's very part of me. I'm still very passionate about
my knowledge that I know from the years of working
and respiratory, but it just didn't fulfill me anymore. And
so and having a young family as well, it was
very difficult.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
So what made this switch, I mean, what made you
go into you know, from that to full finishing, you know,
or or creating.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I love paint color. It brought me joy and it
became a passion of mine. I just really loved transforming
people's homes.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You started with your own, you said, and then you
had friend and friends say, hey, you got something? Did
you have artistic ability? Like before this was this something
that you already knew you had.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Well. I believe we all have a creative side. It's
just whether you embrace it or not. It comes from
your right side of your brain. So I believe that
color really dictates a mood to a room.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
There are are some clients that I had worked with that.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Are very specific about how a color allows them to
go into a room. I had one client that I
changed even though she had it painted and she had
a designer in there redesigning her TV room. She couldn't
go in there because the color was it was in
the blue family and there was just too much blue
(27:39):
in that room.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And she goes, I can't go in there.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
She can't go in there. She hated it, yeah, badly.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, So what I did instead of really changing the
whole process there, she had a lot of off white
in there. So what I did was I took a paint,
I added a glaze, and I did an off white
street a over her blue. And a strea is done
with a wallpaper brush. Okay, so you're putting the paint
(28:06):
on and you're streeing through it to leave that linear
design through there. And so her blue still poked through,
but it wasn't dominant, and it really yeah, and it
really coordinated all the fabrics and stuff that she had
in her room, and it was it was more inviting
(28:29):
for her than Have.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You ever done ceilings? Have you ever done? What are
some of the most common a ceiling.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Some ceilings have been with metallic textures trialed on and
some of them Venetian plaster. Sometimes it's stenciled. I have
stenciled medallions around light fixtures. I do also with stenciling.
I also do embossing, so the texture medium is trialed.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Over a stencil.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
So when you remove the stencil, now you have a
three D image of that design.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Sure ceiling work is tough.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, talk about that. What does the system look like?
I mean, are you on a scaffolding? I just watched
the agony and the ecstasy. Have you seen that? It's
an old name with Charlton Heston. Oh, and Charlton Heston
is playing Michaelangelo and he's painting the Sistine Chapel and
he creates these huge scaffolds and he's laying up on
the painting it. How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Well?
Speaker 3 (29:23):
So I worked on in the mid two thousands, I
worked with another artist on an eighteen thousand square foot
home up in Holly, Michigan, and we were on scaffolding there,
not on our backs. I actually was in charge. The
(29:46):
girl whose job it was did not like stenciling. She
knew that I was good at it, and so she
hired me on to do in this eighteen thousand square
foot home.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
All of the stenciling was done by me and possibly
an assistant.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
On the main floor, I did fifteen hundred square feet
of ceiling with a Moroccan design stencil. It took me
a month and a half within as woww yeah it was.
The main living space was very huge.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But I had to.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Fortunately one of the contractors on the job site because
there was about sixty people working at this home on
a daily basis. They taught me how to use a
stringline to keep my stencil pattern straight because you have
to go linear down a line.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And there's registration marks that help you keep.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
It a line, but then you have to move a
stencil over to do the next row. And so to
keep my rose straight, the stringline was like, you know,
an answer to my prayer. Yeah, we were on.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Scaffolding the whole time.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
We use the little neck braces so we have something
to lay our head on.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, oh, my yodness. How long straight would you do
that before you'd take a break for the day. We
were usually working eight hour days.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
How'd you drive home?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Well, fortunately the girl we worked for gave us a
massage that me and my assistant gave me assage after
that month and a half of just doing just that.
So it was a full finisher's dream and a faux finisher's.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Name nightmare all at once.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
How long ago was that, back in the two thousands, Yeah,
I mean it was like a museum.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
We did. We did barrel ceilings.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
In this home. We did tray ceilings, We did all
kinds of different barrels. I mean, my dad was a
carpenter and the amount of craftsmanship that went into this
home blew my mind, not only just us, because we're
the last to come in, right, So the carpenters have
already done their work. The painters kind of were doing
(32:03):
their work and then coming in after us to finish
their work. The electricians were after us. So it was
I would have to say the job for the main contractor,
it was very choreographed well as to who was going
in when. But I would say a majority of that
job was all working for scaffolding.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
All right, let's pause the conversation right here. We'll take
a quick break and then we'll be back in a
few minutes with the conclusion. Stick around, and we're back.
You're listening to the Repcollite Home improvement shows sponsored by
Benjamin Moore, and I'm continuing my conversation with Barbara Klein
(32:43):
from Creative Impressions. And if you miss the first part,
don't worry. You can catch that full interview in all
of its glory on our YouTube series the Interviews, So
head to Rep Collites YouTube page check out the interviews.
There's a whole bunch of good stuff there. Definitely check
it out. All right, let's get back to the conversation
with Barbara Klein. Now, you also do furniture, right or
(33:05):
I do that? Is that something you're starting to do
more of?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, you know, as a full finisher, I'm sixty four now,
so the body isn't as flexible as f olden.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Dase when you're just cranking out ceilings left and right right.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
So yeah, the flexibility in my body and actually in
my organization. When I go to conventions, I talk a
lot to the other full finishers who are in my
age range, and they're looking for something to do when
they can get off the ladder but still create and
do what they love to do. And so I love
(33:43):
transforming furniture. A lot of millennials don't like antiques, and
so it's a way to update and give it new life.
You can give it new legs, you can give it
new hardware. I can add a stenttal design to it.
I can add a boss design and it looks like
(34:03):
kind of carved wood. Well, and I work with foils,
and foils came from the furniture company originally, and there's
a pattern to foils, or there's.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Explain more about foils just for people.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Foils are done where there's a decorative foil attached to
a cellophane the.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Cellophane is actually on top.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
So if you're going to use a foil, you have
to put an adhesive down, let it dry, so there's
tac and then the foil goes on and you scrub
it with a brush so when when it releases, what
you pull off is just clear cellophane. So the foil
is now left on the furniture piece. I can even
foil through a stencil so that it's a stencil design,
(34:52):
but then it has that foil in the background, so
I'm not really using paint.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I'm using the foil as the decorative part.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
And there's cow hide, there's animal print, there's hologram, there's
there's all kinds.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
There's a stencil or there's.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
A foil company in California. She's got florals and she's
got all kinds of categories. And again it elevates a
piece of furniture.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, definitely a way to elevate furniture in a big way. Now,
in the last little bit that we've got, I know
your dad was a carpenter, and I know that he
taught you a fair amount about you know, carpentry and
all of that. I'm curious how that went down. You know,
did you follow him around as a little kid.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I followed him around, you know, as long as he
allowed us to. Sometimes it was you know, he didn't
want the kids in the room, but sometimes we were
the laborers for him, you know, going and picking up
his scraps. And actually the house, God rest his soul.
He died in March of twenty twenty from COVID, but
he had other complication health complications. The house that we
(36:02):
lived in the last for forty five years, actually he built.
My mom designed it, and my dad built it along
with many of his friends who were trades people.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
So he was a beautiful carpenter.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Never really he didn't really grow up with a lot
of self esteem, so he didn't realize that he was
as talented as he was. He built furniture, he built
I have the first grandson, and he built a cradle
(36:39):
for him, which is in our basement right now. It
went through all the all the grandchildren. My sister has
two kids and now we're on the next generation.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So that is so cool. I mean, just at the
legacy of that, you know, like you said, it's still there. Yeah,
you know, you put this work in and it stays.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
And he built actually the bunk beds for our boys,
and my oldest granddaughter has one of those now. So
my oldest son is very sentimental about his papa and
he doesn't want to give anything away that belongs to him.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
So you learned a fair amount from that. I mean,
what do you build as well? Do you do a
little carpentry stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
I don't build, but I have an understanding. I mean
I can change a light fixture. I've gotten my husband
to do a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
My husband's in car sales, so for him to do
things around the house isn't always easy.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
But I just have the knowledge of how a house
is built, how it should look. So when I hire
contractors for my own stuff to be fixed, I probably
am a big thorn in their side.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know what you want, and you know what's possible
and what.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Should I know what it should and I have such
an eagle eye of precision that.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
I bet they love working for you.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Well, you know, I just have expectations.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
You have a website that we can check out. How
do you have your stuff on?
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I am on LinkedIn, I am on Facebook, and I
am on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
All right, I'll put links to all of that in
the description of the video on the radio show. In
the show notes, Barbara, thanks so much for hanging out
with me today.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Thanks Dan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
And that's going to do it. Remember you can catch
the full interview with Barbara by heading to Repcollate YouTube
page and then checking out our new feature called the Interviews.
All right, last thing I want to leave you with
this week is in regards to the first half of
the show. Now, I talked about painting front doors, and
I also doled out some brilliant, absolutely brilliant color advice. Now,
if you're thinking about tackling a front door project, do
(38:53):
yourself a favor. I talk about it all the time
on the show, our guests talk about it when they
come on. Do yourself a favor. Get the best paint
that you can. You don't want to put in the
work and then have to redo it sooner than you'd
like to do it. So stop out at any Repco
Light location. We'll help you get everything you need. All Right,
whatever you do today, make sure paints a part of it.
And remember your next project is way easier than you
(39:15):
think it's going to be. Stop out at any Repco
Light and let us help have a great weekend everybody,
and i'll see you next week. I'm Dan Hansome. Thanks
for listening.
Well, good morning everybody. Happy Saturday. Happy Saturday. Indeed, I
hope you all had a great week. Hope you're pumped
for the weekend. I am. I got to get my
sprinkler pump working this weekend, so I'm pumped for the weekend. Yeah,
let's just leave that there. You're listening to the Repcolite
Home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And what I
(00:22):
want to start with today is this. I have to
be one of the worst first impressions people that I know.
I think I'm the worst, you know. To be honest,
I'm pretty sure i'm the worst.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Once people get to know me, if they take the time,
you know, to get to know me, after that initial
ridiculous meeting that we have, they usually realize I'm all right.
You know, I've literally had people, In fact, this should
tell you everything you need to know. I've literally had people,
after meeting me for a third or fourth time, say
you know what, You're actually fine. I always hear the
(00:56):
surprise in their voice when they say it. They never
saw it coming, not from that first interaction. They didn't
think I'd be fine at all, but they're surprised. Three
or four meetings later to realize, you know, I'm actually okay.
And when whenever they do that, whenever they you know,
express that surprise to me, I can always think back
to the very first interaction that I had with them.
(01:19):
You know, I don't remember everything. My memory is pretty good.
It's you know, in certain regards. In this regard, it's flawless.
I catalog and chronicle every ridiculous first meeting that I
have with people because they're so horribly painful. For some reason,
my mind likes to collect those like baseball cards. Anyway,
(01:41):
whenever they express surprise that I'm actually okay, I can
always think back to the first meeting that I had
with them. Like the lady at church you know here,
just to give you an example, a lady at church
who came up and introduced herself to me one Sunday.
She said, hey, hello, I just want to introduce myself
because our kids always do stuff together at church, they're
(02:01):
always serving. Just wanted to say hello, you know, normal
human interaction. In that instance, I actually talked. I did
alright with that, and maintained a conversation for you know,
maybe a minute and a half or so, and I
was feeling pretty good about myself. But then as we
were kind of wrapping things up, I smiled and I said,
(02:21):
very warmly, thank you for letting me introduce yourself to me.
And my daughter, who was there for the whole thing,
is still laughing about the look on that poor lady's
face as she, you know, walked back to her car,
just just kept looking over her shoulder back at me
to see if I was real or something. You know,
she was completely fluw mixed. She didn't know what to
say to my ridiculous statement. You know, someday I'm going
(02:44):
to meet her and it's going to be like the
third or fourth interaction, and she'll probably say, you know what,
You're actually fine. Another one at Grand Valley. I love
this one because it was so painful physically and you
know what, emotionally, I don't know, it's just painful. It
was painful socially and physically. Anyway, I'm in a class
(03:05):
at Grand Valley and I introduced myself to, you know,
just a whole group of people. You know, we're just
starting the semester, and I stand up and for some reason,
I'm going to shake hands, you know, I'm just talking
to people. I'm doing everything right, is what I'm thinking.
You know, I'm not shrinking from physical contact. I'm shaking hands,
I'm making eye contact, I'm announcing you know who I am,
(03:28):
and all the things you're supposed to do when you
meet people. And I'm doing that, and I'm feeling pretty
good about myself, except for the fact that I leaned
on the desk, you know, the desktop, to reach out
and shake somebody's hands. And this desk was designed by somebody,
some sadistic person who only put legs under the chair,
(03:49):
you know, that was the support system for this desk
that we would sit at. The chair had four legs
under it and the little tabletop none. So when I
leaned on that, you can only imagine what happened. I
went tipping forward. The desk went flying across the room,
knocking over other desks. It was chaos, you know, for
about ten minutes or so. As people were laughing, you know,
(04:10):
as the lecture starts, people are still laughing, and I'm
sure they're laughing about me. Later on, I'm doing a
group project with one of those people and I get
that same old standard response, you know, the guy says, hey,
you know what you're actually all right, You're actually fine,
you know, I'm actually fine, am I though? Am I
really fine?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I wish those were my only two instances of that,
but I've lived an entire lifetime of them, you know.
And maybe not when I was a baby, you know,
maybe I could do all right then, But at least
fifty of my fifty two years have been painful first impressions.
And if you don't believe me, If you don't believe me,
(04:50):
come to some repcolite events sometime and find me. I'm
usually there, start a conversation and just wait for it.
Bring your popcorn. Nine times out of ten, I'm gonna
do or say something appol ly ridiculous, and then watch
my face because it'll register how ridiculous I've been, and
then it just gets worse. All right, So do that,
all right? First impressions they're not, and never have been
(05:10):
my strong suit. And that brings me to the paint point.
And of course there's no way I'm going to try
to give you advice on, you know, making a good
first impression in a social setting. That's a mystery to me.
That's that's a treasure chest I will never be able
to unlock. You know, I'm never going to get there,
but I can talk about first impressions on another level,
(05:31):
on the home level. And when it comes to our homes,
the first impression pretty much every guest, visitor, traveling salesperson,
you name it, every passerby the first impression they have
of our home, it's usually our front door. You know,
people take in and check out all different aspects of
our homes exterior. I get that, but the primary focal
(05:52):
point is always that front door. Even if people don't
use that door as the main entrance, it's still the
part of the house that first draws your eye. And
we know that's true because when we walk past houses,
that is what we notice. I don't know if it's
just because normally they have, you know, a bright pop
of color there compared to the rest of the home.
I don't know what it is about it, maybe some
(06:14):
psychological thing about the door and the entrance to the home,
but that's where our eyes are drawn as we walk
past houses, as we unless it's dark, unless it's evening
and dark and the windows are open, then everybody looks
inside the house. Right. We try to act like we're
not doing that, but we're all scoping out their decor
or trying to figure out what's on TV or something
(06:34):
like that. But if it's normal, you know, if it's normal,
if it's daytime, you're generally checking out that front door,
you know, and that front door is so important. It
sets the tone for the entire exterior of the home.
A new paint job and a perfect color on that
front door can dramatically boost the curb appeal, and honestly,
it can even make your home look better maintained and
(06:56):
more valuable, all for the cost of a quart of
paint and a little bit of time. So painting your
front door it's easily one of the fastest and most
affordable ways to freshen up your home's exterior. And that's
really important, you know. Right now, in an economy where
everybody's you know, a little bit up in the air,
not sure where things are going. Maybe you've got remodels
that you'd like to do, but they're kind of on
(07:16):
pause right now. This is a project you can jump into,
you can feel good about, and it's going to have
a huge impact for very little money. All right, let's
get to the project. And to begin with, you need
to start by picking the right day to do it.
And there are a number of things to think about
when I say look for the right day. First off,
you want to look for a day when the temperatures
are somewhere between fifty and eighty five degrees. And yeah,
(07:39):
I know that's a crazy big range, but I'm giving
it because there are always people out there who want
to know how hot can it be when I put
the paint on? You know, how hot before it's too
hot if you're one of those people. The eighty five
is too hot if you're using latex paint. But with
that said, it's going to be ideal if you can
(08:00):
work in temperatures a little bit below that. All right,
So work in the right temperature range. That's first. Second,
choose a day when it's not too windy, right, too
much wind can cause the paint to dry too quickly. Third,
you've got to choose a day when the humidity is
in the forty to seventy percent range. That's ideal, that's
what you're looking for. Fourth, choose a day when rain
isn't predicted for the next twenty four hours. And fifth, oh,
(08:22):
my goodness, who believed there were five points I was
going to make about choosing the right day. Fifth, and
this one's not really a weather condition, and it's not
so much about picking the right day, it's about working
in the right time frame. What I'm getting at is,
don't work in the direct sunlight. The heat, just like
the wind, can cause your paint to dry too quickly.
(08:42):
And similarly, don't start painting a surface that's recently been
exposed to direct sunlight, or at least check that surface
temperature before you start. A door that's in the shade
now but that's been exposed to the sun for hours
can often be way too hot and it's going to
cause the paint to dry quickly, all right, So pay
attention to weather, can do the predictions that are coming,
and the surface temperature of the material that you're painting.
(09:06):
Keep all of that stuff in mind. Pick the right
day and the right time to do your work, all right. Next,
you've got to gather your supplies, all right. And I've
got all of this online at repco light dot com,
backslash front doors if you want to go and check
it out, if that's just easier than listening to me,
or if you want to double check you're not taking
your notes, maybe you didn't have your little Repcolllite Home
(09:27):
Improvement show notepad out ready to go, or your pen
was dry. It's frustrating you licked the end of it
still didn't work well, you couldn't find another pen. I
don't know, I don't know. I don't know what I'm
even talking about first impressions. You know, this isn't your
first impression of me. But that's the kind of thing
I do. In a first impression. I ramble, and when
(09:49):
I realize I'm off trail, I ramble even further and faster,
thinking that that's somehow going to help me. Anyway. If
you don't have notes, you're not taking notes, and you
need notes, head to Repcolight dot com, backslash front doors
and you'll find everything there, all right, So gather your supplies.
You're going to need a good cleaner like TSP tri
(10:09):
sodium phosphate. Crudcutter will work. Don dish soap will work.
Get a good cleaner, Get some two twenty grit sandpaper.
You probably want to grab some painter's tape, maybe frog tape,
whatever you like to work with. Get a good masking
tape though, and then a high quality angled brush, you
know angled sash brush and a microplush roller cover all right,
So get all of those things, and of course you'll
(10:31):
need a tray and all the things that you'd need
to make the roller cover work, a little frame. You
can't use the roller cover without a frame. You know,
you can't pinch it between your fingers and make it work.
Need the frame. So get all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
When it comes to the paint, I would recommend Benjamin
Moore's Aura Exterior in a soft gloss that would work
really well. Benjamin Moore's Regal Select Exterior that would also
work really well. Both of those are going to offer
incredible durability, rich color. It's going to retain the color,
it's not going to fade very quickly, and it's going
to really make the door look great. So those would work.
(11:03):
Repcolites and Dura is another option that will hold up
just like those Benjamin Moore products. So three different options there. Again.
That's all at repcolite dot com. Backslash front Doors. All
of those recommendations are there. You can check them out,
all right. So you've got all of that stuff together
right now, it's time to actually start prepping the door
and doing the work and I think probably what is
(11:25):
the prudent thing to do is to take a break
right now, play some commercials, and then actually get to
the project itself, the work of the project on the
other side. So stick around, hang with me. We'll be
back in just a minute. And we're back here listening
to the Repcolite Home improvement show is sponsored by Benjamin Moore,
(11:48):
and we're kind of in the middle of a front
door repaint project. I'm basically trying to walk you through
all the things that you need to know to pull
this project off flawlessly, perfectly, beautifully, And really I should
have said this much earlier in the show. But just
because you're maybe not interested in painting your front door
doesn't mean that all of this info is worthless. You know,
(12:10):
don't tune it out. Most of this stuff applies to
pretty much any painting project, so it's incredibly valuable for everybody.
Everybody out there listening, this is gold. So stay tuned in,
hang on my every word like it's honey from the comb.
All right. In the last segment, I talked about gathering
your supplies and I made some paint recommendations. If you
(12:31):
missed any of that, and you'd like a full guide
for painting your front door, Just head to repcolite dot
com backslash front Doors. You can get one for free
right there. All right, Once you've got your supplies and
your paint, it's time to prep the door. You're going
to start by removing the hardware if you can. If
you can't do that, that's fine. Just tape around it
and cover it over really well that way. Once you've
(12:53):
got that done, wash the door thoroughly with TSP or
whatever cleaner you picked. And you're doing this to remove
any grease, residue things like that. Even a brand new,
pre prime door needs a good cleaning, so make sure
you do that washing and then rinse it well with
clean water. After that's dry, lightly scuff sand the surface
with your two twenty grit sandpaper and then feather out
(13:14):
any areas where old paint may have peeled so that
you can smooth that transition out and make sure that
any paint that's left on the door is not even
close to peeling. All the paint that stays on the door,
if it's been painted before, needs to be stuck down
really well. So if you've got peeling areas, really work
them over a little bit to make sure that you've
got all the peeling paint off. Once you've done all
(13:35):
of that and you've done that sanding, wipe the whole
door down with a damp cloth to remove your dust. Now,
if you've got bear metal or bare wood in any
spots at that point, you do need to spot prime
those areas. Metal doors especially are going to need a
rust inhibitive primer, so be sure to prime those bear
spots if you've got them. Now, once you've done that,
you're ready to paint. And I'm going to walk you
(13:55):
through the order of how you would paint the door
if you've got inset panels or something like that. And
I know this is going to probably be confusing on
the radio, so again head to repco light dot com
backslash front Doors and you can see what I'm talking about.
But anyway, if you've got inset panels, that's where you
want to start, and you're gonna brush carefully into the
(14:15):
corners and the edges. Then you're gonna use a microplush
roller cover to roll the panels themselves. And something that
works beautifully for projects like this are the Wooster Jumbo
coders I talk about them all the time on the show.
They're four inch mini rollers, and what sets them apart
from other mini roller systems is that the little Jumbo
Coder covers match the larger wooster covers exactly, you know,
(14:37):
the same nap, the same materials, all of that. So
basically that means you can roll part of the door
with a larger cover if you want to, and then
the smaller sections with a Jumbo coder and the way
the cover leaves off the paint will be identical no
matter which cover you use. That's really important and really cool.
So check out those Jumbo coders. They're definitely worth picking up,
all right. So you roll the panels on the door
(14:58):
if you've got them. Once you've done that, you roll
the mullions. Now those are the vertical sections between the panels.
After that it's time to paint the rails, which are
the horizontal pieces on the door. And once you've done that,
you roll the outside edges. All of that is going
to just be the best order in which to paint
that door. And again I've got all of that at
repco light dot com. Backslash front doors. Everybody can say
(15:21):
it from memory right now, Repco Light dot com backslash
front doors. Check that out all right. As you're doing
your painting, plan your timing carefully. You know you picked
the right day. Plan your timing carefully. Ideally you're going
to be putting your first coat on around eight or
nine in the morning something like that. You want the
do to be you know, off the door, or you
know the door to be dry before you start. But
(15:42):
if the sooner you can start, the better. Let it
drive for about four hours after you've painted it, and
then apply the second coat, probably around noon one o'clock
or so. And then after that final code, try to
keep the door open as long as possible, hopefully till
about seven pm. And that's going to give the paint
time to set up properly and prevent it from sticking
when you close it. All right, last thing I got
(16:02):
for you are just a handful of tips pro tips
to get the best results possible. First thing, do not
skimp on the roller cover, the applicator or the brush,
you know, whatever you're using to apply it. You know
you probably need both of those. Don't cheap out on
those things. We talk about it on the show all
the time, and I talk about it because I've seen
(16:22):
it happen so many times. People will try to save
a little bit of money, which is completely understandable. I'm
in that boat most of the time, but I speak
from experience. Normally I try to skimp out and save
money on things that I shouldn't be saving money on,
and I always always regret that decision. In this instance,
this is absolutely one of those that you'll regret. Don't
(16:44):
skimp out on the roller cover, don't skimp out on
the brush. Get good tools for this, especially the roller cover.
You know, a cheap roller cover can be two to
three bucks. Maybe an expensive roller cover, top of the
line roller cover is going to be five bucks, you know,
five and a half bucks. You don't want to save
two dollars and fifty cents and have the tool that's
putting your high quality paint on. You don't want that
(17:06):
tool to produce results that don't look good. So use
a good roller cover. I'd recommend the Wooster microplush roller covers.
Love those. You're going to get an almost sprayed like
finish on the door if you use that. And the
other great thing about those Wooster microplush covers is that
they come in the Wooster Jumbo coder size, which is
the four inch or the six inch mini rollers, and
(17:26):
they also come all the way up in a nine
inch of fourteen inch and eighteen inch cover. Whatever size
cover you'd want to use on the door, even if
you have to mix sizes, you'll have the exact same cover,
the exact same roller, nap and finish, so you're not
going to have any differences when you switch your roller cover.
So Wooster Microplush roller covers, that's the way to go.
Another thing, make sure you're choosing the right paint for
(17:47):
the project. Again, I recommended Benjamin Moore's Aura Exterior, Benjamin
Moore's Regal Select Exterior, and Repcolites Endure. All of those
are going to hold up really well. They'll be tough
on the door, they'll hold up to whatever you throw
at it. And also they're going to resist fading better
than a lot of other products out there, So keep
those things in mind. Last little tip, if you've got
(18:07):
any questions at all, if you're getting ready to start
this project, just swing out to any Repco Light store,
tell us what you're working on, and we'll walk you
through all the ins and outs. Because I can't cover
every situation that you might run into on that door.
I can't do that on the radio, but they can
certainly help you with your exact situation in the store
at any Repco Light. So stop out and see us.
(18:29):
And that's pretty much it. With a little bit of
prep work and some good products, you can completely transform
the look of your home for a minimal investment. You know,
Quarta paint and some supplies. It's only going to take
you a couple hours and you're gonna have a big
payoff at the end. All right, let's take a break.
When we come back, I'll be in the studio with
Barbara Klein, a decorative painter who's got a lot of
(18:49):
great stories. We're gonna get to that in just a minute.
Stick around and we're back. You're listening to the Repco
LIGHTE Home Improvement Show sponsored by Benjamin Moore. And right
now I want to play a portion of a conversation
that I had earlier this week with Barbara Klein, owner
(19:12):
of Creative Impressions. Now, Barbara's a decorative artist and she's
been doing all sorts of faux finishes on walls since
the late nineteen nineties. Now what I'm going to air
is just a small portion of the full conversation. You
can find the entire interview on repco Lights YouTube series
The Interviews, So by all means check that out. But
for right now, here's Barbara. So let's go way back,
(19:34):
before faux finishes, before doing decorative walls, doing all of
those things, you were in respiratory therapy. What in the
world was that jump like to go from medicine to painting.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Well, it was I've always had a creative background. It's
always something I've dabbled with, and respiratory was one thing
that was a two year school for me. It was easy,
it was to make good money, but it just wasn't
(20:09):
filling my soul, if you will. And it just the
medical field just got too complicated.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And how long were you doing this respiratory therapy stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I was doing it for over twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Years, oh so good, long time.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
And teaching CPR as well. And just in nineteen ninety
eight I took a couple of little decorative painting classes
in a store in a city near me and got
the bug. Started doing it for myself, started doing it
(20:48):
for family and friends.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
And they said, you know, you're really good at this.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
You should consider this. Being a business and having young children,
it was something that I could work my schedule around
shechem in daycare and I actually did both jobs for
a while.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
The respiratory therapy and the yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And trying to do the folk finishing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
And then in ninety nine I joined an organization called
at the time it was called SALLY and then it
changed to IDELL, which is SALLY was Stencil's Artisans League, Okay,
because back in the eighties stenciling was very.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Big, and it was the thing in the eighties.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, and then people started incorporating full finishes with their stenciling.
So the organization regrouped in the mid two thousands and said,
you know, we be we need to be more inclusive,
and so IDELL is actually International Decorative Artisans League. Through
that I have learned from the best in the industry.
(21:58):
And I don't any job I do, you know, I
take it very seriously.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So I want training.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I want to know when I'm giving my clients.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So when you started this, what was the big faux
finishing thing going on? I mean way back, I mean
we're sponge painting, rag painting. I mean, is that what
we were doing at that point.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, yeah, but I learned through the years that yeah,
you might use a sponge, but you might use a rag.
But a true ful finished professional is it going to
allow you to see what tools used?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Okay, so when I did it, you could tell what
tools were used. You could even tell how I held it.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Right exactly, and that that's being having too much paint
on your tool and just going at it. So the
whole idea too, is a light touch, going easy on
putting the product on the tool. Even with stenciling, you
dip the tip of the brush, because it's a flat brush,
(23:06):
you dip the tip of the brush in the paint
and you off roll it on a piece of paper towel.
So what that does is it works that paint up
into the bristles. So as you're tapping or swirling your
brush into the stencil, the paint is gradually coming off.
It's not this big blob blob, and it prevents the
(23:26):
paint from bleeding.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Underneath the stencil.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Also, you spray the stencil with adhesive spray, so you
have a good stick, right.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I know that I've done that one before.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, but felt finishing has really evolved over the years,
and you might use a sponge and a granite technique
just because you're blending multiple colors to build the look
of stone or build the.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Look of brick.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
If you look at an actual piece of stone or brick,
there's a light, medium, and dark tone. So I've actually
mimicked like your wall behind you. I've actually replicated a
wall like that to look like actual brick.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You said that you just weren't feeling it in the
respiratory in the medicine, and you said medicine got more
complicated or I don't know if that was the word
you used for me.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
It became less about patient care and more about making money.
The hospitals started changing. Instead of nonprofit, they became more
money makers. And then the insurance companies changed in them
I guess the mid eighties to what they call a DRG,
and the DRG is they were dictating how long a
(24:48):
patient could stay in a hospital depending on what they
were there for.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Okay, we all heal.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Differently, and sometimes there's complications that prevent us from leaving
when the insurance companies want us to leave.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
And so with.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Hospital workers, we were beginning to be overworked, not compensated
for it, and it was for me. The reason I
got into it was for patient care.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Right, And now you feel like you're kind of short
shifting that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, we were just robots trying to get as many
treatments done in a day, not really being able to
spend the time with our patients like we should.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I also specialized in pediatrics.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
I worked with cystic fibrosis and asthmatic and I did
home teaching for the parents for these children and try
to teach them how to not only care.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
For their child, but to care for their home.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
With asthmatics, you have to set up your home differently
due to dust and carpets and smoking, and so I
was teaching as well as you know, doing the therapy.
So with respiratory therapy you're working with the heart and lungs,
so you're really a heart and lung specialist. I still
(26:08):
it's very part of me. I'm still very passionate about
my knowledge that I know from the years of working
and respiratory, but it just didn't fulfill me anymore. And
so and having a young family as well, it was
very difficult.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
So what made this switch, I mean, what made you
go into you know, from that to full finishing, you know,
or or creating.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I love paint color. It brought me joy and it
became a passion of mine. I just really loved transforming
people's homes.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You started with your own, you said, and then you
had friend and friends say, hey, you got something? Did
you have artistic ability? Like before this was this something
that you already knew you had.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Well. I believe we all have a creative side. It's
just whether you embrace it or not. It comes from
your right side of your brain. So I believe that
color really dictates a mood to a room.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
There are are some clients that I had worked with that.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Are very specific about how a color allows them to
go into a room. I had one client that I
changed even though she had it painted and she had
a designer in there redesigning her TV room. She couldn't
go in there because the color was it was in
the blue family and there was just too much blue
(27:39):
in that room.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And she goes, I can't go in there.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
She can't go in there. She hated it, yeah, badly.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, So what I did instead of really changing the
whole process there, she had a lot of off white
in there. So what I did was I took a paint,
I added a glaze, and I did an off white
street a over her blue. And a strea is done
with a wallpaper brush. Okay, so you're putting the paint
(28:06):
on and you're streeing through it to leave that linear
design through there. And so her blue still poked through,
but it wasn't dominant, and it really yeah, and it
really coordinated all the fabrics and stuff that she had
in her room, and it was it was more inviting
(28:29):
for her than Have.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You ever done ceilings? Have you ever done? What are
some of the most common a ceiling.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Some ceilings have been with metallic textures trialed on and
some of them Venetian plaster. Sometimes it's stenciled. I have
stenciled medallions around light fixtures. I do also with stenciling.
I also do embossing, so the texture medium is trialed.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Over a stencil.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
So when you remove the stencil, now you have a
three D image of that design.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Sure ceiling work is tough.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, talk about that. What does the system look like?
I mean, are you on a scaffolding? I just watched
the agony and the ecstasy. Have you seen that? It's
an old name with Charlton Heston. Oh, and Charlton Heston
is playing Michaelangelo and he's painting the Sistine Chapel and
he creates these huge scaffolds and he's laying up on
the painting it. How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Well?
Speaker 3 (29:23):
So I worked on in the mid two thousands, I
worked with another artist on an eighteen thousand square foot
home up in Holly, Michigan, and we were on scaffolding there,
not on our backs. I actually was in charge. The
(29:46):
girl whose job it was did not like stenciling. She
knew that I was good at it, and so she
hired me on to do in this eighteen thousand square
foot home.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
All of the stenciling was done by me and possibly
an assistant.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
On the main floor, I did fifteen hundred square feet
of ceiling with a Moroccan design stencil. It took me
a month and a half within as woww yeah it was.
The main living space was very huge.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But I had to.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Fortunately one of the contractors on the job site because
there was about sixty people working at this home on
a daily basis. They taught me how to use a
stringline to keep my stencil pattern straight because you have
to go linear down a line.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And there's registration marks that help you keep.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
It a line, but then you have to move a
stencil over to do the next row. And so to
keep my rose straight, the stringline was like, you know,
an answer to my prayer. Yeah, we were on.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Scaffolding the whole time.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
We use the little neck braces so we have something
to lay our head on.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, oh, my yodness. How long straight would you do
that before you'd take a break for the day. We
were usually working eight hour days.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
How'd you drive home?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Well, fortunately the girl we worked for gave us a
massage that me and my assistant gave me assage after
that month and a half of just doing just that.
So it was a full finisher's dream and a faux finisher's.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Name nightmare all at once.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
How long ago was that, back in the two thousands, Yeah,
I mean it was like a museum.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
We did. We did barrel ceilings.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
In this home. We did tray ceilings, We did all
kinds of different barrels. I mean, my dad was a
carpenter and the amount of craftsmanship that went into this
home blew my mind, not only just us, because we're
the last to come in, right, So the carpenters have
already done their work. The painters kind of were doing
(32:03):
their work and then coming in after us to finish
their work. The electricians were after us. So it was
I would have to say the job for the main contractor,
it was very choreographed well as to who was going
in when. But I would say a majority of that
job was all working for scaffolding.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
All right, let's pause the conversation right here. We'll take
a quick break and then we'll be back in a
few minutes with the conclusion. Stick around, and we're back.
You're listening to the Repcollite Home improvement shows sponsored by
Benjamin Moore, and I'm continuing my conversation with Barbara Klein
(32:43):
from Creative Impressions. And if you miss the first part,
don't worry. You can catch that full interview in all
of its glory on our YouTube series the Interviews, So
head to Rep Collites YouTube page check out the interviews.
There's a whole bunch of good stuff there. Definitely check
it out. All right, let's get back to the conversation
with Barbara Klein. Now, you also do furniture, right or
(33:05):
I do that? Is that something you're starting to do
more of?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, you know, as a full finisher, I'm sixty four now,
so the body isn't as flexible as f olden.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Dase when you're just cranking out ceilings left and right right.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
So yeah, the flexibility in my body and actually in
my organization. When I go to conventions, I talk a
lot to the other full finishers who are in my
age range, and they're looking for something to do when
they can get off the ladder but still create and
do what they love to do. And so I love
(33:43):
transforming furniture. A lot of millennials don't like antiques, and
so it's a way to update and give it new life.
You can give it new legs, you can give it
new hardware. I can add a stenttal design to it.
I can add a boss design and it looks like
(34:03):
kind of carved wood. Well, and I work with foils,
and foils came from the furniture company originally, and there's
a pattern to foils, or there's.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Explain more about foils just for people.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Foils are done where there's a decorative foil attached to
a cellophane the.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Cellophane is actually on top.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
So if you're going to use a foil, you have
to put an adhesive down, let it dry, so there's
tac and then the foil goes on and you scrub
it with a brush so when when it releases, what
you pull off is just clear cellophane. So the foil
is now left on the furniture piece. I can even
foil through a stencil so that it's a stencil design,
(34:52):
but then it has that foil in the background, so
I'm not really using paint.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I'm using the foil as the decorative part.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
And there's cow hide, there's animal print, there's hologram, there's
there's all kinds.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
There's a stencil or there's.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
A foil company in California. She's got florals and she's
got all kinds of categories. And again it elevates a
piece of furniture.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, definitely a way to elevate furniture in a big way. Now,
in the last little bit that we've got, I know
your dad was a carpenter, and I know that he
taught you a fair amount about you know, carpentry and
all of that. I'm curious how that went down. You know,
did you follow him around as a little kid.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I followed him around, you know, as long as he
allowed us to. Sometimes it was you know, he didn't
want the kids in the room, but sometimes we were
the laborers for him, you know, going and picking up
his scraps. And actually the house, God rest his soul.
He died in March of twenty twenty from COVID, but
he had other complication health complications. The house that we
(36:02):
lived in the last for forty five years, actually he built.
My mom designed it, and my dad built it along
with many of his friends who were trades people.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
So he was a beautiful carpenter.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Never really he didn't really grow up with a lot
of self esteem, so he didn't realize that he was
as talented as he was. He built furniture, he built
I have the first grandson, and he built a cradle
(36:39):
for him, which is in our basement right now. It
went through all the all the grandchildren. My sister has
two kids and now we're on the next generation.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So that is so cool. I mean, just at the
legacy of that, you know, like you said, it's still there. Yeah,
you know, you put this work in and it stays.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
And he built actually the bunk beds for our boys,
and my oldest granddaughter has one of those now. So
my oldest son is very sentimental about his papa and
he doesn't want to give anything away that belongs to him.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
So you learned a fair amount from that. I mean,
what do you build as well? Do you do a
little carpentry stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
I don't build, but I have an understanding. I mean
I can change a light fixture. I've gotten my husband
to do a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
My husband's in car sales, so for him to do
things around the house isn't always easy.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
But I just have the knowledge of how a house
is built, how it should look. So when I hire
contractors for my own stuff to be fixed, I probably
am a big thorn in their side.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
You know what you want, and you know what's possible
and what.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Should I know what it should and I have such
an eagle eye of precision that.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
I bet they love working for you.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Well, you know, I just have expectations.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
You have a website that we can check out. How
do you have your stuff on?
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I am on LinkedIn, I am on Facebook, and I
am on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
All right, I'll put links to all of that in
the description of the video on the radio show. In
the show notes, Barbara, thanks so much for hanging out
with me today.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Thanks Dan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
And that's going to do it. Remember you can catch
the full interview with Barbara by heading to Repcollate YouTube
page and then checking out our new feature called the Interviews.
All right, last thing I want to leave you with
this week is in regards to the first half of
the show. Now, I talked about painting front doors, and
I also doled out some brilliant, absolutely brilliant color advice. Now,
if you're thinking about tackling a front door project, do
(38:53):
yourself a favor. I talk about it all the time
on the show, our guests talk about it when they
come on. Do yourself a favor. Get the best paint
that you can. You don't want to put in the
work and then have to redo it sooner than you'd
like to do it. So stop out at any Repco
Light location. We'll help you get everything you need. All Right,
whatever you do today, make sure paints a part of it.
And remember your next project is way easier than you
(39:15):
think it's going to be. Stop out at any Repco
Light and let us help have a great weekend everybody,
and i'll see you next week. I'm Dan Hansome. Thanks
for listening.
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