Episode #49: Paint Talk With Scott From The Craftsman Blog

Stacy Grinsfelder  0:02  
I'm Stacy Grinsfelder from Blake Hill House and I am the host of True Tales From Old Houses.

Hello, it is a beautiful fake spring day here where I live and what is fake spring you ask? Let me tell you. Fake spring is a day-- a day in March where the temperature hits about 55 degrees or higher and the sun even shines. It feels like a miracle after days on end of cold and snowy weather. We shuck off our coats, dig out the shorts and expose our pasty white legs to the world without so much as a hint of embarrassment. Not even a hint. We open the windows for fresh air. And in many cases, the outdoor temperature is warmer than the inside of the house. True old house problems-- you know what I'm talking about. And even though we all know it's fake spring, we just can't help ourselves from engaging in just ridiculously premature tasks like putting the snow shovels away, scrubbing the porches or even firing up the lawn mower to see if it still works. One year, I was out for a walk on a fine fake spring day and I saw-- and this still, it still gives me a chuckle. I saw someone skimming the leaves out of their swimming pool. Something about that man's unshakable optimism has really stuck with me through the years. Tomorrow, it's going to be 20 degrees colder. A few days after that, there will be snow again, our real spring weather is still five to six weeks away. But for this one glorious day in March, we will forget all about that. And we will squeeze every single drop out of this gift of a day that we have been given. So if you're experiencing real spring, I am so so jealous. But if you get fake spring like we do, I sincerely hope that you were able to enjoy every minute of that special day.

So outside of the weather, and not much is going on here at Blake Hill House, I am still deeply entrenched in the staircase restoration project. And all updates are over on my blog, BlakeHillHouse.com. So if you're interested, you can always catch up on my projects over there. Alright, announcements, announcements, I have an announcement about something that's coming right up in April. And I'm just gonna read this because the name of this organization is kind of a mouthful, but it's the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, and the Smithsonian Institution. They're hosting a three day celebration of women and their pivotal role in American preservation. This event is April 5 through seventh and it's virtual. Now the event is free, but you must register to attend. And I'll put a link right in the show notes. So here's the description. I'm going to just read directly from the flyer and it says:  "Join us for three days of dynamic discussions with more than 30 scholars, museum professionals and powerful everyday advocates." Sounds great to me. So if you're part of a nonprofit with an upcoming event that you would like for me to announce on the show, please send me the details via the contact form on the True Tales From Old Houses website. All right now it is time for Q&A. And I have invited a friend to help me out. Let's see who's here today.

Lindsay  3:22  
Hello,

Stacy Grinsfelder  3:23  
it's Lindsay from Blind Eye restoration. Thank you for coming back today.

Lindsay  3:28  
Of course, always.

Stacy Grinsfelder  3:30  
It's fun to have you do this Q&A segment with me. So we've done an interview this season, but you're a professional and I thought I need Lindsay's input on this question. So are you ready? 

Lindsay  3:40  
Yeah. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  3:41  
Okay, the question that we that the listener sent to us is or to me, and I'm asking you to help me out is, What is your favorite modern product for old house restoration?

Lindsay  3:53  
Yeah, so I think something that's really cool from modern systems is a heated floor. We have a lot of problems with introducing new systems or heating systems to old houses, a lot of times we have to build ducting, and just weird blobs that end up showing in rooms that didn't used to have them. And heated floors are a really great way of adding heat to an entire space without introducing any kind of new visual feature that would detract from the historic integrity. It's really great for house museums that are able to install it and even personally in historic homes.

Stacy Grinsfelder  4:35  
So that requires electricity. I guess I've seen it, it's a grid, you kind of lay it out and then you and then you can tile over it or whatnot. And it does require some electricity. So is that something that ties into the existing circuit in like a bathroom? Or do you have to run new electricity is it's not a plugin? I mean, it's automatically it's kind of hardwired? Is that correct? Yeah.

Lindsay  4:57  
It's a hardwired system. You can get installed for it, but the app or the installation of it isn't so bad. It's you can actually run it underneath from the basement I think. old old house guy. Oh, no. Oh, I'm terrible. Alex from [Old Town Home]. He did one recently, through his stories, you could watch him putting it in from his basement, you could actually reach up to the bottom of the floor in his downstairs and he just ran it all the way around there and then insulated over top of it in his basement ceiling when he was redoing the space down there. So you could watch the whole thing. And it was really just about, like, evenly spacing and running it back and forth and having Yeah, having the material

Stacy Grinsfelder  5:42  
what was the floor above it?

Lindsay  5:44  
What was the it was the wood floor? I think it was a wood floor.

Stacy Grinsfelder  5:46  
Oh, yeah. And you know what? That's so smart. Because, you know, I can access, I can actually see my upstairs, you know, through my basement because we don't have a sub floor by hardwood. It's just laid right on top of it. 

Lindsay  5:58  
Same. Same. After he did it. I was definitely like, yeah, I wonder maybe I should do that.

Stacy Grinsfelder  6:06  
That's a great idea. I wonder if that would work, too. I have one of our rooms upstairs, hangs over an outdoor space that gets really cold. So I'm super curious whether you could almost do it on that floor of that outdoor space and keep everything from getting so cold upstairs.

Lindsay  6:23  
I don't know, it could be a really good idea. I'm definitely planning on doing it on my back porch addition. That is a bathroom mudroom space. So the foundation, it's a foundation, but it's not a heated foundation space over my primary house. And so it gets really cold out there regardless. And so we're really excited to put that in soon.

Stacy Grinsfelder  6:45  
Good idea. That's a really good idea. All right, well, my favorite products hands-down, and I haven't used nearly as many products as you have as a professional. But my favorite product is the Abatron wood epox and liquid wood. I really like that stuff. You know, I--my climate, your climate too is incredibly harsh. So a lot of those products that you can use for-- epoxies I find just over time kind of they'll, because of the expansion and contraction of wood, they just pop out or they shed paint or whatever. And I really like the wood epox and liquid wood. This is not, I guess it's technically an advertisement for them. I'm not getting paid for this advertisement for them. But it stands up so well. And it really stays put and paints and so that I would choose that as my very favorite modern products.

Lindsay  7:34  
It's-- I like the the filler putty epoxy. Yes. The liquid wood kind of acts as a hardener for the base wood, 

Stacy Grinsfelder  7:43  
right 

Lindsay  7:44  
That you attach the the woody pox on to and the woody epox I love it's great three dimensionally you can really, like reshape a corner of something.

Stacy Grinsfelder  7:53  
Yes.  I built a foot on a desk, you know, one of those little--yeah, I just rebuilt what it was missing. So I just used wood epox and I built a little foot and it was good as new.

Lindsay  8:04  
it's really light. And as long as you not necessarily I mean, I don't know, was it holding a lot of weight? the foot? I've never tested it's-- It's like structural integrity.

Stacy Grinsfelder  8:13  
No. basically, I was building toes on a foot. So the foot was there and I rebuilt the toes. So I guess I yeah, 

Lindsay  8:20  
gotcha. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  8:21  
gave myself too much credit there.

Lindsay  8:23  
No. sculpting with that stuff is still a trick. Yeah. It's a great product. There's a bunch of neat epoxies out there. My my right hand lady, Morgan, she actually did a study of epoxies in her school education program, where she tested a bunch of different ones. And it's been really fun to look at like which ones we like better for things that like that, that are more three dimensional things where we need something more structural. There's this stuff called architectural restoration technology. I think ART I call it art epoxy. And it's a little stickier. It's almost like working with peanut butter. But it gets so hard and it's still sandable but it's not as like smooth sandable as that wood epox wood epox is definitely the most user-friendly for sure.

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:11  
Did Morgan publish that paper or anything anywhere that somebody can read it? That sounds like a really interesting article.

Lindsay  9:16  
She did in her school journal. And I'm really trying to get her to put it on our blog. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:22  
Yeah, yeah. If that happens let me know because I would love to link it and love to read it. And of course, if I pass any information along, I would certainly reference Morgan and Blind Eye Restoration.

Lindsay  9:32  
Yeah, absolutely. We'll let you know.

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:34  
All right. Thanks for answering this question with me today. It's always good to see you.

Lindsay  9:37  
Yeah, You too.

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:39  
Talk to you later. Bye. 

Lindsay  9:40  
Bye. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:41  
Now it is your turn this season. I have a question for you as a listener, and it is: What is the weirdest or most surprising thing you ever found in your old house? And I got a few answers to the question via the contact form on the website. And I'm going to read those to you or tell you more about them today. So the first anecdote is from Alyssa. And I kind of feel like, maybe I should give a trigger warning for this one. So I'm going to tell you, if you don't like snakes, you might want to cover up your ears for the next minute, minute and a half turn the volume down if you're driving in the car. I'll give you just one second. Here it is. Alright, so here's the scoop. Alyssa lives in a circa 1790s brick colonial. And when she moved in, they found three, five foot long black snakes in the attic and the basement. And she said they first realized they had the snakes because they found a long snake skins that the snakes had shed and left behind. Can you even imagine? Oh, my goodness. So they finally found the snakes It was probably three months after they're moving in, and they don't have any idea how long they were there before they caught them. And it's also really unclear whether those snakes entered the house from the ground level and made their way up to the attic, via the cavities on the wall. Or if they scaled the outside of the house and entered through the attic, and then made their way to the basement kind of creepy. Like I said, if you don't like snakes, that's not the story for you. But this next one I thought was super interesting in it comes from Christina and her story would make a an excellent plot for historical time traveling novel or something similar. And I'm going to read it to you word for word because Christina explains it best. She writes: I am an investigator for the National Labor Relations Board or the NLRB. We are the federal agency which protects the rights of workers to form and join unions among other rights. My husband and I own a 1901 Victorian which we have been renovating. This past summer while renovating a bedroom we found an old piece of homework in the walls, and the homework had the name Dorothy Mirguet. We looked up census records that listed her father as Alban Mirguet, and they were listed at our address. And here's the fun connection Alban Mirguet was the subject of a 1939 NLRB case. Alvin had been fired from his job for trying to organize a union and the NLRB found that his termination was unlawful and ordered that he be reinstated with full back pay. And then she ends with this, She says: It's funny to think that my agency helped a family living in my house long before I walked this earth." I think I agree 100% I mean, if that is not a tale of coincidence, then I don't know what is. I want to hear your answers all season, so please visit the True Tales From Old Houses website. On the bottom right hand side you will see a microphone icon. Click on that microphone and you can leave a voicemail answer which I might share on an upcoming episode of the show. Please answer in a complete sentence. And don't be shy. You can leave the voicemail using your phone or even your computer as long as it has a microphone. Your privacy is important, so rest assured that any messages you leave will not be shared without your permission. Thank you, Alyssa and Christina, for taking the time to answer the question about the weirdest or most surprising thing you ever found in your old house.

Before I begin the interview with today's guest, Scott Sidler, I need to say a word. This season, The Craftsman blog is a financial supporter of True Tales From Old Houses. What that means is that Scott's company has paid to have a commercial during an episode. That financial contribution does not give him or his company creative or content control over the show in any way. Since commercials are new on True Tales From Old Houses, I really, I just want to be as transparent as possible about how this works and how it's going to work moving forward. I also like to keep the FTC happy so that I can keep bringing the show to you. They can be a little prickly about this sort of thing. Alright, so cats out of the bag. Scott Sidler is here today. And rather than a long intro, let's just jump right into it.

Scott Sidler  14:07  
I am Scott Sidler. I'm the owner of Austin Historical and The Craftsman Blog where we teach people how to restore old houses.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:14  
Excellent. Well, hi, Scott. Welcome back to True Tales From Old Houses.

Scott Sidler  14:18  
It's so good to be here again. Good to see you.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:20  
Well, it's always a pleasure to tap into your expertise to share with my listeners. And yeah, good to see you again. It's great. I see you on Instagram. I see you. 

Scott Sidler  14:29  
Yes, 

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:29  
on Facebook, but rarely face to face. So

Scott Sidler  14:32  
Yeah, Instagram. So fun. It's a great way to like, I feel like it's an easy way to connect with people in this little cottage industry of people fixing up old houses, and there's a lot of people sharing great stuff. So it's a lot of fun.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:43  
I think so too. It was-- I was thinking to myself the other day that when I first met you and I thought oh gosh, we had like zero professional relationship. We didn't know each other at all, and it's so much fun on Instagram now that I think people tag you they tagged me at the same time.

Scott Sidler  14:59  
Totally, yeah,  I was like, I always see this stuff. It's like, Okay, I've got this problem, Blake Hill House and The Craftsman Blog, what do we do? Well, we'll figure it out. It's like it's, you know, I like the hive mind kind of crowdsourcing thing that you can do on Instagram.

Stacy Grinsfelder  15:12  
Right, right, right. I don't know. I've never told you the story before. But when we did meet in person, we were at the --Why did it just escaped me. This is the kind of morning that I'm having--We met at the window restoration workshop.

Scott Sidler  15:25  
Yeah. Brooksville, Florida.

Stacy Grinsfelder  15:26  
That's right.

Scott Sidler  15:27  
I forget the name of the house. That was there.

Stacy Grinsfelder  15:30  
It was the May-Stringer--May-Stringer house.

Scott Sidler  15:32  
That's right. Yeah. That was our houses down here. All the historic houses. Have you noticed they all have two names? We've we've worked on the Walker-Henry house, the Mote-Morris house was like, nobody. It's not like the Jones house. Like I never see that. It's always two names for some strange reason.

Stacy Grinsfelder  15:37  
Yeah, that's interesting. Well, it was a funny thing, because we stayed in the same hotel, I remember. And we went in and there was this breakfast there. And it was a buffet and the place was empty, except for you. And I had this total High School moment like, Oh, my gosh, do I go sit with Scott? Like, is it weird that we have breakfast together?

Scott Sidler  16:05  
Not weird at all. It's good. Yeah.

Stacy Grinsfelder  16:07  
No, it's not. I was just thinking Two years later, three years later, I What was I thinking? but it is funny how you just get to know somebody better yourself. Anyway, thank you all that chitchat out of the way-- but we've done episodes before. And you've done some general Q&A during your previous visits, but we're gonna really dive in and sort of drill down on Paint and Primer talk, as well as your new window restoration course, because I'm really interested in in hearing about that, we'll get to that part. But a lot of people ask me about paint. And what I've kind of discovered is that I mean, after the hours of painstaking prep and the priming, that painting should feel like the reward. But it can be really overwhelming to decide what to use. And I feel like every trades person has their favorite. I may be wrong. I may be misinterpreting this. But when you have a favorite that gets interpreted into this is the right way, and the other ways are wrong. And I don't know, it's kind of the he said, she said situation. So I thought maybe we could talk about it. 

Scott Sidler  17:11  
Absolutely, I mean, painting. That's one of the questions I get the most is, well, what's the best paint for this? or How should I paint it is like painting, painting advice. Everybody has an opinion. It's just like, you know, getting in the car with a different driver. And you're like, why are you driving like that? Some people make you nervous. Some people are super cautious. It's like, but most people are able to get to where they want to go. And it's fine. And I don't know that there's there are certainly some wrong things to do when painting. But I don't know that there's-- all the advice out there that we all say, Well, this is how I do it. So anybody who does it other than that is wrong. I don't know about that. They're just different from what you do. And it may be a little bit better or a little bit worse. But there's there is a ton of information and questions about painting. And it just seems like it's a never ending hole that people can just go down and start researching and researching and never come up with an answer. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  18:00  
Right

Scott Sidler  18:01  
Because there's no one answer. I would say for most of these topics, you know, there are better primers to use better paints to use. I think we all kind of agree on paint prep, like there's certain things that you just have to do. Like if you don't scrape off that flaking paint, then you're going to have problems with it. If you don't deal with some of the stuff, the surface preparation, you're going to have problems but most paints today are are pretty resilient. And you can you know, there are some obviously, mistakes you can make. And we can certainly talk about some of those pitfalls to run into But 

Stacy Grinsfelder  18:31  
okay, 

Scott Sidler  18:31  
I don't think people should be quite as worried about well, I'm doing a different than this pro recommends this pro because both pros are going to argue with each other and they both are professional painters. So it's fine. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  18:41  
Right. exactly. Alright, let's talk a little bit about I have some terminology I wanted to ask you about. So the first thing like paints and primers, a lot of times they're compatible with each other across the brands. I kind of feel like linseed paint is in a class by itself. Would you agree with that or disagree?

Scott Sidler  19:01  
I would absolutely agree. I think linseed oil paints I mean this is what paint was hundreds of years ago this was the the simplest version of it is some kind of dry pigment mixed in with linseed oil and that's how you would apply it that was the the basics for paint and then we started adding different things in the pigments would change like we use white lead for to get the white colors and the liquid pigments and things like that too but linseed oil paint works well on linseed oil primer-- like if you're going to prime-- there are there are only a couple of linseed oil primers but you usually don't even need a primer with linseed oil paint it just goes directly onto the substrate. I've experimented and use it a little bit down here but I generally don't use it because I live in Florida, the mildew capital of the world. And linseed oil paint has a real tendency to mildew, even the the there are some brands that are made Allback and Viking make some that are you know supposedly much more resistant to mildew. I think sometimes they say that it's mildew-free But I've still seen the mildew after a few years because linseed oil has protein and protein is food for mildew. So they've tried to remove and negate some of that protein, but they're kind of a unique paint. Have you ever used them?

Stacy Grinsfelder  20:14  
Well, no, I've been playing around. But I have kind of the same problem with mildew up here. We have a much-- you're much hotter, quicker humidity, but we have I mean, I kind of-- we're not Alaska, let me tell you, but you know, how things-- you might have heard in Alaska where they have this, you know, two-month growing season. So things just explode. You know, they go from there's nothing and then they have these giant, almost prehistoric looking plants. There's a little bit of that going on here too. So we can go from zero to 100 in three months

Scott Sidler  20:48  
mildew bloom everywhere.

Stacy Grinsfelder  20:49  
Yes. So it happens really fast here. And, and things don't dry out, because we also have, we have hot days, but we have cold nights, and then you might get a week and a half a rain. I mean, it's just it's we're always fighting and Mother Nature always wins. 

Scott Sidler  21:06  
She does. I mean, our whole goal is to try and keep her at bay as long as we can and maintain these houses. So I mean, one of the cool things about linseed oil paint is like especially if you're glazing windows, you can glaze you can use linseed oil, or putty and glaze it and then go grab your paintbrush and paint it immediately. So that's really nice that you don't have to worry about skinning over the putty or anything like that they're totally compatible. If you're using a linseed oil putty, if you're using a different kind of putty, not so compatible, but you also have the advantage of sometimes put, you'll have to put a few coats of paint on if you're doing linseed oil, it usually goes on a little bit thinner or at least it's soaks into the wood a bit too and you'll usually get get a glossy finish, there aren't a lot of that, or, you know, satin finishes with linseed oil, it's just as glossy. And then one of the advantages, I think, is that instead of having to repaint and it doesn't create like a paint film, like how we do you know, you peel the paint off of something with a latex or even oil based linseed oil is more of a breathable paint film, so you don't get that kind of like bubbling up kind of paint issues. You'll also be able to maybe five years later come back and just brush on some linseed oil and it will kind of reimold modify the paint pigments and kind of give the paint an extra like extended life. So as it as it fades as you lose some of that glossiness you can come back with just raw linseed oil, or whatever the manufacturer is recommending to come back with because some of them have their own special linseed oils. But you don't have to like sand it prime it and paint it again. It's just reapply paint and paint and paint over the years. So it's kind of nice like that.

Stacy Grinsfelder  22:43  
Yeah, so linseed oil paints. They're both interior and exterior. Is that correct? Yes.

Scott Sidler  22:48  
Yeah, they can they can be applied most of outright every manufacturer has their specifics, but in general linseed oil paint is for inside or outside.

Stacy Grinsfelder  22:57  
Okay. All right. That's interesting. I have a quick question for you. That's somewhat related to linseed oil and priming we I do have another term I want to ask you about but as far as rabbets go another really debatable thing-- rabbet in Windows, not bunny rabbits. But

Scott Sidler  23:12  
there's a lot of debate about those kinds of rabbits too.

Stacy Grinsfelder  23:14  
Yeah. So do you always do you prime your rabbets? Or do you just brush linseed oil, I guess you're in the mildew capital. So you may not use linseed,

Scott Sidler  23:22  
I use. So usually depends to like our common Austin Historical, we pretty much prime rabbets all the time. There may be occasions where we're just going to come out somebody has a broken piece of glass, and we'll just come out really quickly. And we'll just bring a little rag dipped in boiled linseed oil, rub it into the rabbet and then re glaze that window and those cases, but if we're you know, for a window restoration, we're usually going to prime the rabbets to seal them. So that the it doesn't just draw all the oils out of the putty.

Stacy Grinsfelder  23:51  
Okay, all right. Yeah, kind of put the cart before the horse there. But I thought well, that was a good time, we could ask that. Alright, so my next question for you is to let's define the term alkyd. Now it's my understanding that Alkyd used to just mean basically oil paint was Alkyd.

Scott Sidler  24:06  
Yeah, so usually alkyd-- so you've-- on the market today, depending on whether you live in California or not, you won't see them on the market there.

Stacy Grinsfelder  24:13  
Yeah, we're gonna get there.

Scott Sidler  24:14  
Yes, most most states you can still find acrylic or alkyd paints and alkyd paints now you can get into you could go deep down this layer of like water paint back, you know thing because there's epoxies. There's urethanes not just like a polyurethane, but you can have a urethanized paint urethanized acrylic. There's even one that Sherwin-Williams makes that I think is like an alkyd, acrylic alkyd urethane and you're like, I don't know how you mix all three of those together, but somehow they have figured out how to do that.

Stacy Grinsfelder  24:45  
Okay, well, let me stop you for just a second that let's do like- okay, pause Long, long pause dead air-- (laughing) Alright, so the, I was gonna say-- let's talk about what alkyd used to mean and then maybe talk about these modern alkyds. I know Sherwin Williams has one, Benjamin Moore has one, probably most of the big companies are having one, you know, using one now, and they're actually-- they have alkyd on the paint label. So maybe that's where you could clarify the difference for us. I mean, we're not here, we can talk about specific brands of paint. They're not--just to make it clear, they don't pay us to talk about these. They're just kind of things that we all use a lot-- the different brands, so go ahead, that's fine. 

Scott Sidler  25:25  
So an alkyd paint. Basically, if you see alkyd, you can assume that that is a it's an oil based paint. There are various forms of it. But it is. I am a little bit of a science nerd on stuff like that. So I know it's a it's a polyester modified with fatty acids. I remember seeing that I was like, okay, but that doesn't mean anything to me for how I paint. But basically, if you see an alkyd paint, it's an oil based paint, which means that you're going to have some kind of solvent. In any paint, there's a solvent, so linseed oil paint, that was the linseed oil. In acrylic paints, it's water. In alkyd paints, it's paint thinner mineral spirits, there are some that have that use different thinners like xylene, or whatever. But it's basically it is that there is a solvent that is not water, for most people's purposes. And that is what evaporates out. So you're getting an alkyd paint. Some of the advantages of alkyd paints, they're, they provide like usually very hard finish. They're slow drying. So you know, that was the stuff that people used to paint trim and woodwork with and windows because it would take eight hours to dry 24 hours to recoat most cases, and it would lay down really nice and you get this super, you know, no brush marks super smooth surface. They really are beautiful, and they're really not sticky when they dry. So in alkyd paint, the advantage that's one of the big advantages like really hard enamels are typically alkyds. And most oil based paints that people still will use on things like cabinets, and woodwork and things like that, where you don't want paint blocking. And that's you know, you close the door up against the jamb and you open it, you feel that where and you see the two colors like sticking together like that's from acrylics. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  27:08  
Nooooo! 

Scott Sidler  27:09  
That's the problem we have now that we didn't. Right. It was perfect. It's beautiful, and I just don't even want to close the door. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  27:14  
Right. 

Scott Sidler  27:15  
But they alkyds don't stick to each other like acrylics do. And that's one of the main reasons I think that people still use alkyds today, because they're harder to work with.

Stacy Grinsfelder  27:24  
Yeah, you bring up a good point--not available in California. And I think there are several states where they're not available anymore. I was trying to look up a list, but you know that that information kind of, I think was 2005 or something when there was a big shift. And I think slowly other states have come on board, and decided not to sell these oil based products. So now we have something called a modern alkyd, which is a term that's been floating around. So that must be--that can't be all oil. So it must be a mixture of something else. And so why don't you tell us a little bit more about those?

Scott Sidler  27:57  
Yeah, you'll see them usually called acrylic alkyds. Okay, which a lot of places Yeah, Sherwin-William, Ben Moore, a lot of those companies have those kinds. I haven't seen them being used too much outdoors. I think Ben Moore has one this their advanced line that only the high gloss you can use outdoors, the rest of them are interior only. So it's a newer technology. But somehow they have figured out how to take that alkyd paint and suspend it in a in an acrylic formula in a water based cleanup formula. So you you you thin with water based things like floetroll You thin with water, you clean up with water. And as the water evaporates is essentially the way I understand it, and I could be wrong on this, but this is what my paint reps have told me--Essentially, as the water evaporates it, it releases the alcohol that then that paint flows out as an alcohol. So it's a much lower VOC version, which is why these states have problems with these paints. And they've limited them not because they had bad performance or anything but because the VOC content, which, volatile organic compounds, basically the smell, or the fumes is too high on these compared to acrylics,

Stacy Grinsfelder  29:03  
 right 

Scott Sidler  29:03  
So I I've used them and I find that I get that really nice hard finish with it. So I use them on woodwork and things like that a lot. The only challenges I just haven't found a good one for exterior yet. And so I have to think it's coming down the line. If they figured out how to do them as like, partially exterior, and I don't know why the sheen changes something with their formulations, but the higher gloss stuff can be used outside but all the rest of it is only interior.

Stacy Grinsfelder  29:28  
Interesting. Yeah, I'm a fan. I really like them to I think they mimic the oil paints a lot but the cleanup is so much easier.

Scott Sidler  29:35  
Oh so much easier. It's I mean, it's really a pain I think about-- my grandfather was a painter and I think about how he had to clean up everything you know, we do we still use oil based primers in our shop. And it's just more to clean up. It's just it's a better primer. They haven't figured out a latex primer that's as good and doesn't penetrate as well. And so that's what we use. And for me paint it's all about the performance. I would I would rather have no VOCs. I would rather have you easy clean up, but if it's only gonna last a couple years, then why am I doing that? I'll use the better product, the older technology if they haven't figured out how to make the new stuff as good.

Stacy Grinsfelder  30:09  
Right, right. And I can totally understand that from a professional standpoint too, because you don't want to have to go back and keep repeating the work or have the homeowner to it. And from a DIY standpoint, like I mean, I have so much work to do already. I don't need to double or triple or quadruple any amount of work that I have, because there's always a backlog.

Scott Sidler  30:28  
No, it's awful. Rework is the most expensive thing we do as a company-- warranty calls like oh, this is rotting was like, that's why we use rot-resistant woods. That's why we don't-- we use good paints that we don't want them peeling and we work with manufacturers who stand by their product too. But same thing for DIYers, right? Like you've got-- we've all got a life is like I don't want to repaint my cabinets again. Just one time.

Stacy Grinsfelder  30:48  
Yeah, definitely. Well, let's talk about primers because, you know, even if we run out of time today, I think just talking about primers, good bonding primers will be really helpful to everybody who's listening. So I know we have we have oil based primers, we have water based we have alkyd. We have shellac. We have these linseed oil primers, which I guess we'll just we'll consider that we already talked about linseed products today.

Scott Sidler  31:12  
Yeah, it's kind of its own niche.

Stacy Grinsfelder  31:14  
Yeah, because everything else is a little bit interchangeable. But I use oil based primer a lot You said you do. But I'd really like to know-- and these alkyd primers I guess-- I can, now that we've talked about alkyd paints, I can sort of catch on to what an alkyd primer is. What is shellac primer? and I guess just maybe briefly give me an overview of the difference between oil based water based and shellac.

Scott Sidler  31:36  
Yeah, so water based primers. latex primers are the most people call latex still, but it's not really latex. It's acrylic now. Latex was that's what Sherwin Williams came up with in the 40s-- their first stuff

Stacy Grinsfelder  31:48  
Good to know

Scott Sidler  31:49  
and I don't know when it made the transition to acrylic now. but it's a slight difference, but the performance is about the same, but they create like a surface coating. So the primer, you put on a latex primer and it prepares the surface to be able to have-- pot pot paint--pont on it--I put them together paint and bond. Yeah, you can have the paint bond well to the primer and that primer is also good at holding on to the surface. Now like there are drywall primers, wood primers, metal primers, make sure you're using a primer for whatever it is you're actually painting. And in general I don't tend to lean towards the all purpose primers because kind of like a jack of all trades is, if you're good at everything then you're not a specialist at one thing. So use a wood primer for wood primer for wood or drywall primer for drywall. Find that specific primer it's usually not as expensive as paint and well worth it to. And then the so that creates like latex or acrylic primers create more of like a a coating on top of it. Oil-based primers alkyd primers, they tend to penetrate more into the wood because wood is better at taking in oil in the wood, especially older woods are very thirsty for oils and the oil in those paints, the solvent mineral spirits paint thinner, penetrates more deeply so it brings the primer into it. And then you have the opposite end which is the shellac primer, which is-- the reason you would use a shellac primer is it's really good at stain blocking. So old woods, you know, we don't have these issues so much anymore, but like nicotine stains on on stuff. Like if you're using-- if you're if you're working if you're priming or painting Woods like cedar that have really heavy tannins in them, they will bleed right through a latex primer and paint you may not even see it may not happen like as you're priming and painting. It may take weeks or months even. I remember I was visiting Martha's Vineyard and I was we were eating out on this patio, which was beautiful. And they had the cedar tongue ceiling that was painted blue. And I saw every knot which was orange and it had bled through the paint because they use the latex primer. And then so latex not so good at stain blocking. Oil based much better. And then the ultimate is the shellac base because it's it's shellac. It is just like a polyurethane or something like that. It's it's different, it's shellac, but it's an oil based primer, too, so you don't clean that up with mineral spirits or water, you clean it up with denatured alcohol. And it is the ultimate stain blocking. Nothing gets through. So it's shellac with a white pigment, usually white, added to it and really nothing's gets through that at all. So we use that on knotholes. Sometimes we have old window stash or doors where we'll prime it with oil and then we'll notice that it's bleeding through. We'll come back with shellac and touch up spots but that's only in its interior and exterior spot treatment it's not for fully coating exterior of things. The shellac is not. Ask me why.

Stacy Grinsfelder  34:44  
Oh, why? Why Scott? Why? 

Scott Sidler  34:47  
Because shellac can get warm and then you put it outside in the sun and it has issues. It can melt off of things, especially in warmer climates. So maybe not that much of an issue in the northern climates. But down here, I have had my paint coatings melt off of windows because it was painted like a black paint here in Florida summer and we did shellac primer on the outside because it was bleeding and you're like, nope. Paint just kind of like melted right off of it. So follow the manufacturer's instructions. Yeah.

Stacy Grinsfelder  35:13  
Oh, so disappointing. So I have a question. Actually, this is like a troubleshooting question maybe and this might be a time to talk about it. So you know, sometimes you'll go by a house and you'll see there's one in particular and you're the shutter guy and they have proper shutters. I'll just clarify that-- beautiful proper shutters. It's also has a false thatched roof, which I think is amazing. And behind the shutters are-- it's a White House has green shutters and behind that dripping all the way down from second story down look like rusty and it could just be rust, you know from the hinges or something. But what causes stuff like that?  It's so sad. 

Scott Sidler  35:52  
Yeah, so it might be it may be rusted depends on the colors of things. But you've seen-- I do remember I posted something a picture of some shutters that look like they were just weeping down the side of the building. It looked like Tammy Faye with her mascara running down. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  36:08  
Yeah, 

Scott Sidler  36:08  
So a lot of times as paint ages, it goes, if it doesn't fail, like if you don't get bubbling or peeling or things like that. It gets you get chalking paint, which is the natural lifespan. Don't think like your painter did a bad job or it's a bad paint, but the natural it wears out by getting very matte finish very chalky. And that chalkiness is all the solvent or the acrylic or anything is gone now and you're left with the dry pigment. And it just is kind of falling apart and paint is at the end of its life. Well, that dry pigment can start to like run down your wall if it's been a long time since you've painted it. So that's a possibility. To or it happened immediately, then it was the paint wasn't quite dry and it rained. But usually it's the chalky paint over years, some of that pigment starts to run down there, especially if you've got like that white house with the green shutters and they haven't been painted in a while it'll slowly kind of, you'll lose the pigment slowly but surely,

Stacy Grinsfelder  37:04  
yeah. And we have a thing here that people do, it's kind of a corner that painters cut. And that's where if they repaint a house, they'll do the front of the shutter, but they won't do the back. So the back ends up, it's already in bad shape. And then it just goes from bad to worse. And so I could very well be that

Scott Sidler  37:21  
It never got painted. And so now it's chalky paint, it's just running down the paint you feel on the shutters out feels great, and it looks nice behind it not so much for the paint on the wall behind the shutter to from what was there, originally, the old body paint is going to be doing that same thing. So taking the shutters off to paint is always a I know it takes more time. But it's always a good idea because you're just not protecting those areas of your house anymore. And the water gets back there and it doesn't dry out. So those are areas that are really prone to rot.

Stacy Grinsfelder  37:50  
Alright, so we have a few more minutes to talk about paint. So let's talk about maybe I'll give you some scenarios. And you can tell me

Scott Sidler  37:59  
I like it. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  37:59  
maybe what would be good for you and just note to you: I didn't write any of these scenarios down. So hopefully I'll be with it enough that I can come up with these on the fly, but

Scott Sidler  38:09  
Hopefully I'll come up with good answers too

Stacy Grinsfelder  38:11  
Yeah, all right. Let's start with Florida since that's where you know, right? So what primer and you don't have to necessarily pick a brand you can if you have a favorite but I guess I'm more looking for like, you know, oil based or shellac or whatever. Let's start with what type of primer and what type of paint would you use for the exterior of a window and excluding linseed? Let's say we're not going

Scott Sidler  38:36  
of a wood window?

Stacy Grinsfelder  38:37  
Yeah. 

Scott Sidler  38:38  
So I would use a long what's called a long oil. It's basically a wood primer, it's an oil base or an alkyd base wood primer and it is slow drying eight, okay, eight hours, 24 hours to recoat or so and that way I know that I'm going to get really good penetration into the woods. I will at times use a fast dry alkyd primer and those are like 30 minutes to an hour and great. It just depends on the scenario what I need to what the clients looking for what I want to accomplish. You know sometimes I don't have the ability to wait 24 hours to repaint like it's just a quick, Can you come out and fix this wood chip. We'll do a little band aid and it'll be fast.

Stacy Grinsfelder  39:16  
So long oil primer What do you have a favorite brand? I mean, I was talking --I said you didn't have to say, but do you have one because I'd like to hear it.

Scott Sidler  39:23  
Ben Moore makes one and they're Morehouse white. I like that. Sherwin Williams also makes a wood primer. That's a long oil. It's a I don't forget the official name of it, but it's an a pink can that they make. That's their brand. I really like both of those. They've I've done some testing on both and they last a good long time and they provide a really nice base for my painting. So I don't have to worry about what's going to happen later.

Stacy Grinsfelder  39:46  
Okay, so what kind of paint would you put over that?

Scott Sidler  39:49  
I use? I guess. Yeah, so I've used a lot of Sherwin Williams and Ben Moore are kind of my go-to brands I've used Behr on my own house at one point and I was really impressed with the way Behr held up. The only reason as a pro that I don't use Behr is I just don't have the support. Like there's nobody to talk to, there's not a paint rep to be like, Oh, you should troubleshoot here and try this maybe. It's just you just, it's the paint counter at Home Depot, and that's not sufficient for me. And so, Ben Moore and Sherwin Williams provide that support. So I've used Sher-kryl, which is not on there, like it's kind of hidden in the back in their industrial line. It's meant for painting wood boats. And it's like, if it can be if it can hold up to a wood boat, then it should do well here and has really great adhesion. It's a little sticky to deal with in your painting process, and it gums up your brushes pretty good, but it works really well. longevity wise, I've painted porches with it and it holds up for years.

Stacy Grinsfelder  40:44  
Is it a water cleanup?

Scott Sidler  40:46  
It is a water cleanup.

Stacy Grinsfelder  40:47  
Okay, I'll try that on my storm windows this summer.

Scott Sidler  40:49  
Yeah, those are those are great. Another one we use is I particularly like for you talking exterior, so I don't use that for the exterior--Ben Moore--What is the one that we use most of the time on here, Ultra Spec, thank you has had a okay. braincloud Ultra Spec by Ben Moore. I use that on the exterior of our windows. We we weren't using it. We're usually usually using Sher-cryl and then we got spec that for a job. And everybody on the crew loved it--very easy to use. The cleanup isn't quite so sticky on your brushes and things like that. adhesion is good. And it keeps its sheen for a long time. I've noticed over the years, it doesn't start chalking nearly as quickly. So I really like that one too.

Stacy Grinsfelder  41:39  
Okay. So let's say --I started very specifically in Florida, but I guess let's move outside and say there's a state where you can't use an oil-based primer. So what would your second choice be?

Scott Sidler  41:52  
Well, I don't know. Are there any states where you can't use oil based primers? I know a lot of you can't buy them in gallons anymore. You can buy them in quarts, which is annoying and expensive.

Stacy Grinsfelder  42:01  
Actually, now that I just said that I realized that was kind of silly, because I think you're right. I don't think I think wow, California, though I think California you can't, but I could be wrong and

Scott Sidler  42:10  
You can't buy a lot of stuff in California. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  42:12  
No no, but I think Yeah, exactly. I you know, I lived there for 15 years. So I didn't realize what I was missing. But to tell you the truth. But I do miss California a lot. But I didn't realize just how stringent the regulations were until you know, I could buy spray paint off the shelf. I didn't I didn't even have to go find somebody to let me have a key that open it up. Yeah,

Scott Sidler  42:33  
yeah. So I don't know that I would--So we use latex primers. At times I'm placed I use the Ben Moore Morehouse they have white prep the Ben Moore Fresh Start is one of those that we use for latex. I like that. I think it's a good latex primer. I think that. So the only reason I use that is because there are times where people can't like timewise. They can't have they don't want it the additional expense of the long oil because it slows down our production times. We can't spray it. I mean, we could but we need to have all kinds of like different protections and you can spray latex rather easily. So I like that Ben Moore Freshstart. I think it works well. And that's if I had to use a latex primer on wood. That's probably the only one that I feel comfortable with using right now. But I would still go with if you want a longer performance, I would go with oil. I think right now that's just where it still is technology-wise for pain.

Stacy Grinsfelder  43:25  
Okay. All right. All right. That's pretty good then so that good. So let's go interior. But how about interior, let's and let's assume that we kind of have similar choices across the board because a lot of people have HVAC, which kind of keeps their interior, you know, kind of standard whether you're in Florida or somewhre else.

Scott Sidler  43:46  
So those those same paints that I was talking about could be used inside, they work fine for that. There's a couple more options on the interior. Probably my favorite interior paint for any woodworker Windows is Ben Moore Impervo. It is an alkyd. It's an oil based paint, but I have not seen anything that gives such a nice smooth finish as that it covers really well. The satin imperva in particular that brand when you that's sheen when you paint it on, it looks glossy, so some people might be turned off like that. But after a week, it settles into its proper sheen and it's just it's just I think that's like the that's been their flagship, then more for years and it's one of the few oil based paints they have not gotten rid of because it's just so good. And it holds up so well as an oil based paint. Yeah. Ben Moore Impervo.

Stacy Grinsfelder  44:35  
So do you like the Advance line if people cannot get oil base?

Scott Sidler  44:37  
I do. That would be my next. My next preference is for Ben Moore's version. I like the Advance line of paints. Those are really nice. Sherwin Williams version of that is ProClassic. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  44:48  
or Emerald right? 

Scott Sidler  44:50  
Emerald has--I'm not sure if they have an acrylic alkyd on that, but Emerald is their top of the line. Just overall paint inside and out. I really like too. That's a very nice paint, an expensive paint too 

Stacy Grinsfelder  45:00  
Yeah. 

Scott Sidler  45:02  
But I really like their ProClassic acrylic alkyd that's that same thing as Advance. And it goes on like water cleanup and everything but then it lays down like an oil base. So it's really nice in that vein. I've painted, I've done the trim work in my own house with that. That was right before they came out with Advance, I was using that so and it's held up well, for the last 12 years or so,

Stacy Grinsfelder  45:25  
I painted a bathroom in the ProClassic and it's great, it really is a little tricky to use at first because it doesn't--you can overdo it really easily. You just have to kind of put it on and commit. Rather than trying to go over it with the brush

Scott Sidler  45:42  
Acrylic alkyd or the-- because they make an oil based ProClassic. They make an acrylic alkyd, and they make a water base.

Stacy Grinsfelder  45:49  
So I used

Scott Sidler  45:49  
You have the option. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  45:50  
I used--Interesting. I can see the label, I always thought I was using the acrylic alkyd. But now I have to go read my label. See, I just learned so much from you already, and I'm curious because I feel like I haven't heard a lot of these names before, whether-- as a professional, Do the professional paint lines have different names than the ones that a DIYer can get off the shelf? Do you have any idea? Or should they be the same?

Scott Sidler  46:12  
They don't have different lines. But I've noticed like if you go into a Sherwin Williams or Ben Moore rep store, they'll have the ones out there that you can look at that are there like homeowner friendly ones that they've recommended. But then behind the counter, there's a whole world of paints that are there that the professionals get, which I think I don't think it's really duplicitous them, but it could seem silly, they're like, Well, here's this, here's that here's, you know, Sherwin-Williams HDTV brand, and this brand and Emerald and things like that. But there's a whole bunch of stuff behind the counter back in the storeroom, that they don't really advertise so much that Sherwin Williams-- maybe 10 or 20 years ago, they were like, here's what we love, but now they've replaced it with new ones. They're always upping their formulas and things like that. But I still, you know, there are a lot of painters who are like I am accustomed to using this, this is one of you know, this was one of my favorites. So I stick with it. And just like anything, you know, it's what you're familiar with. There's a lot of painters that won't try Emerald, because it's a new paint, they're like, I've used Super Paint for 30 years, and it's fine. And unless they have problems with it, they don't usually don't have a need to switch. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  47:16  
That's true. 

Scott Sidler  47:17  
I've painted houses with Emerald with super paint with Resilience, which they're their top three and Duration. And I like all of them. I'm not a fan of Super Paint or Duration for windows and doors, because it's really sticky. It's great for the body of the house. It's really flexible. So you paint your siding with it. It's wonderful. But if you try and paint windows and doors, I did a couple and they just glued themselves shut immediately.

Stacy Grinsfelder  47:40  
Right? That would be miserable. Well, I find it interesting. Sometimes as a homeowner, it can be a little daunting walking into these paint stores because you tell them-- you're like, Oh, I want this. And they're like, I don't know that you want that. And you're like, You know what? I DO know I want that. Thank you very much.

Scott Sidler  47:56  
Actually, I do. Yeah, yeah,

Stacy Grinsfelder  47:59  
I have this conversation a lot in and well, I have it, I have it everywhere. I've tried to decide whether it's personal, or whether it's just like how they're trained to, to talk to other people. But But I have found that that's why I was asking you about the paint names and whether this was a trade thing, or whether this was a home-- because I can almost prepare myself for the conversation that I would have. And I'm coming across very negatively. And that's not exactly what I mean. I just it's like, you know, what is it? You know, if you know what they're going to say, then you can plan what you want to say. Right? So I hear myself going in and asking for these brands? Or they'll be like, No, I don't really think you want that one. Well, yeah. yeah I do.

Scott Sidler  48:36  
Cuz nobody, like homeowners don't buy like, homeowners don't buy the Sher-cryl. Well, I've had a couple people from my blog that have gone out and bought it. They're like, why they're asking them the same question like why do you want that? Because it's it's part of their industrial coatings set up, and you're like you're a homeowner, looking for the industrial and marine coating for painting wood boats. Are you really painting a wood boat? 

Stacy Grinsfelder  48:56  
Right? 

Scott Sidler  48:56  
Well, no, but I know I want that. Well, I think you'd be happier with the stuff that 90% of our customers have our homeowners buy. And maybe you've been pointed in the wrong direction for this. So I think that's pretty common on there. And same thing like with the Impervo, I've had people go in and say I want this and they're like, Oh, you mean this version? The waterbase one? like no this, like, why do you want? Are you sure? Because nobody buys that anymore, other than these pros who have been painting for 40 years. They're like, well, I want to try this. It's an old fashioned paint, and I like I want to see how it works. So yeah, it's just something that they don't get asked all the time. So when you ask to see behind the curtain, they're like, Why? Well, how do you know that there's stuff behind the curtain?

Stacy Grinsfelder  49:35  
Right? Who told you about that? who sent you?  

Scott Sidler  49:38  
You're not supposed to talk about that. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  49:41  
The private paint collection for the painting elite.

Scott Sidler  49:45  
Yes. It's like the off menu stuff. When you go to the restaurant. Like I know you've got that special dish that you don't tell anybody about-- like it's the same way at the paint store. There's always something that they keep in the back just for the special people who know about it, but they're not going to tell you or market it.

Stacy Grinsfelder  49:58  
Right right. Oh, that's fine. They Okay, well, I'm going to link all of this on the show notes, I'm going to-- when I listen to this and put this episode together to then I'll write all these brands down, try to link them all. So everybody can see them, I might have some behind the scenes questions for you just to make sure that I'm linking the right thing, that kind of thing.

Scott Sidler  50:15  
And I'll preface it by saying-- that wasn't really a preface because it was after it--an afterward to say that these are the paints that I use, which doesn't mean that they're the right paints for everybody else to use. It's just paints that I've used. And I like. And I really think painting is largely personal preference. If you do the right thing of proper paint prep, you put the proper proper primer down and you paint well. That's really what it's about. There are hundreds of paints out there that will do just fine in most things. And I just haven't had the opportunity to test every single paint out there. of the ones I've used. These are my favorites.

Stacy Grinsfelder  50:48  
Okay. yeah. And as far as scenarios go, I think we talked about interior, exterior, that's fine. Let's spend just a minute and a half, two minutes talking about painting water based paints over oil, and how we can make those bond together. And then we'll move on, and I've got a different topic. 

Scott Sidler  51:07  
So yeah, so you if you have, if you're unsure, I'll say, if it's oil based, you absolutely need to prime with an oil based primer, that's the biggest challenge. So if you prime with an oil based primer, that will bond to an oil based paint, or to a latex paint, if you put a latex primer on top of oil, it's just going to peel right off, it's going to be really easy to take off. Or if you put a latex paint on top of an oil based paint, it's going to peel off too. So if you want to be sure, and a lot of people, you can even go through this testing thing of let's see if it's oil based or latex, I don't usually, I don't care to spend the time to do that. It's like I'm just gonna use an oil based primer. And then I don't have to worry about how I thought it was latex, but I was wrong, you know, like so an oil based primer, and then you can put on top of an oil based primer, you can put latex or oil, no problem at all. Same thing with a shellac, you can put latex or oil, not a problem at all, you just as far as primers go, you can only put a latex paint on top of a latex primer, you don't want to try and mix and match in that way. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  52:10  
Right. So if I have oil paint, I can also--on interior because we talked about the pitfalls of exterior use for shellac--. But I could use the shellac primer on top of oil paint and then cover that with-- is that what you said? Or did I misunderstand?

Scott Sidler  52:23  
Yes, you could but I would recommend you didn't unless you're having the some bleed through. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  52:27  
It stinks. It's bad. 

Scott Sidler  52:28  
It's really smelly. Really, the only time you use that is for when you're having bleed through. It's very expensive to you know, you're talking like 50 or $60 a gallon compared to 20 or $30 a gallon for other primers. So the shellac base should be like a, a targeted, you know, surgical kind of strike in those areas where you're having problems of bleed through of tannin bleed or something else-- stains you want to cover up, water stains, things like that are great for select primers that are just expensive and difficult to use because of the the alcohol cleanup.

Stacy Grinsfelder  52:58  
Right. Okay, that makes total sense. I just wanted to know because I see, sometimes people using it and that always did feel to me like killing a fly with a hatchet. It felt like a lot of product for maybe 

Scott Sidler  53:10  
It is. It's the nuclear option.

Stacy Grinsfelder  53:11  
you could get from something else. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right, that's great. I am having that scenario play out across my grand staircase in my foyer. I did not do that. I did not paint the latex over oil. I just need to make that clear. But that is a situation that I'm responsible for taking care of now. And you know, sometimes that latex can last a while, but it will always fail.

Scott Sidler  53:34  
It doesn't have the scuff and abrasion resistance that that know, if you put it on a door or a window, it's going to come off very quickly that blocking it's just going to start peeling.

Stacy Grinsfelder  53:44  
Yeah. I've had the wackiest thing I take my Cobra infrared paint remover, and all I have to do is just point it at that latex, and it doesn't even bubble it just cracks. 

Scott Sidler  53:53  
It jumps off?

Stacy Grinsfelder  53:54  
Yeah, it jumps off. I'm like well, thank you for that gift. At least I don't have to work so hard trying to get rid of it,

Scott Sidler  54:00  
That's wonderful. I like it for pain stripping purposes. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  54:02  
Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, let's--this is great. This has been super helpful, I think to just kind of have a chance to really talk about all these things. I hope that listeners, I mean, I probably should have advised them to get a piece of paper and a pencil out before we even started. Maybe they'll need to rewind, you know, go back and

Scott Sidler  54:22  
jump back. Jump back.

Stacy Grinsfelder  54:23  
Yeah exactly. Listen to this as much as you want. This has been great. I've been wanting to have this conversation for a while. And you're just the right person to have it. 

Scott Sidler  54:32  
It's how you finish it, right? I mean, you do all that hard work to get everything repaired and restored and then you put a you put a bad paint job on top and it makes it look bad. Like just take your time to learn, you know, the right way to do paint prep and and and do your paint application. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  54:48  
Right. 

Scott Sidler  54:48  
My my grandfather, I don't know if you've have heard like paint keys called church keys. Have you heard that phrase?

Stacy Grinsfelder  54:54  
I don't think so.

Scott Sidler  54:55  
No. So they are some, some painters that I've worked with around here that are now retired, but they would call it a church key. And I asked him once, I was like, why did you call it a church key? Because they're like, it's like going to church on Sunday. He's like the rest of the week, you work hard, it's miserable, you're exhausted. And then when you get that key, you get to open the can. And it's like going to church. That's the great part. That's what makes the whole week worth it is you get to go and you put the paint on, because you've done all the hard work. So it was like going to church for them.

Stacy Grinsfelder  55:21  
Oh, that's great. And I do know what a paint key is now. I was confused at first when you're talking about what that meant. 

Scott Sidler  55:26  
That's what they would call it, they wouldn't call it the paint key. They call it a church key. And I thought it was kind of funny. I was like, I don't understand this reference at all. I've never heard it explained it as like, that makes a lot of sense to me. Because it is really when you get to that point to paint, you're like, Ah, finally.

Stacy Grinsfelder  55:40  
Yeah. satisfying. So satisfying. 

Scott Sidler  55:43  
Yeah. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  55:45  
All right. Well, again, I'll link all of this on the show notes and everything and make it really easy, hopefully, for people to refer to the information again, and but the other thing I wanted to talk about completely, it's not really unrelated. It's all related. Everything we talked about here is related. But something I'm really excited about that you are doing, which is you have made you've recorded a giant window restoration course, that people can buy and learn how to restore their windows from start to finish. And I want to hear your take on it. I've, I've-- I have access to the course. So I've been able to see it. And I'm just so impressed. I'm really, it's nice to have it all in one place. And so so tell me all about it. Tell me what you got.

Scott Sidler  56:32  
Yeah, I mean, prior to COVID, I was going out and teaching workshops a lot. And we'd invite people in here to our shop to teach them how to restore the windows. And I realized is like this is just not, it's just not possible right now. And I my mission has always been the idea of trying to democratize window restoration, I want it to be  available and approachable by people. And so I've written all these posts and done videos here and there. And I went, you know what I really need to have to kind of supplement the books that I've written on it, the Old Windows Made Easy and Old Windows In Depth, that I was like, people are always asking if you could just show me rather than like a picture and some instructions, how you're doing that and what works well, and kind of troubleshoot some of the stuff. And so I thought you know what, this is a good time, I'm not doing any workshops, I'm going to pour that time into walking through a whole window restoration here in my shop and on site, and pay money to get a good videographer to come in here and edit it and put it all together so that you can watch me work step by step through a restoration of a double hung window. And so we've got everything from like, how to pull window anatomy, how to pull the windows out, we put quizzes at the end of the chapter. So you can make sure you're remembering the important stuff we talked about-- obviously paints and primers,glass, and we walk you through, I say we I walk you through, it's me talking to you the whole time. In different lessons, there's 20 something lessons, hours of video, and probably to walk through the whole thing would take you about --if you sat down for a whole day and read it and watch the videos. It'd be a 10 to 12 hour day, I think by the time you're done with it. But I like that you can have something where you get this access to this course. And you can come back and be like, hold on, I need to look at the glazing chapter chapter, again, the lesson on glazing, what did he do there? And you can watch me work through it all, instead of a page or two in a book that talks about it with a couple pictures which are helpful, but I think video is just you know-- it's 2021-- video is the way to communicate stuff, especially doing how do I do this? How do I do that? Show me? Well, that's what I tried to put together was a way that you could show people how to do it. And that way people can also do this without having to work with me, personally. It's more scalable. I can have people taking this class right now. There's 30 something people in the class going through and you know, we they get a private Facebook group where myself, my brother, a few other people. Allison Hardy from Window Woman is in there too. And there are professionals in there answering questions to about their window as they run into this stuff that they're like, hey, this isn't actually covered in the course. This is a weird thing that no, has anybody seen this before? So we kind of put that Facebook group together, they get access to that they can ask questions and share their wins and losses, and stuff like that as they work through it.

Stacy Grinsfelder  59:13  
So who is this course geared to who would you who would this course benefit?

Scott Sidler  59:18  
I geared it towards beginners and DIYers. So anybody if you're a homeowner, if you own an old house, I was like, these are the people I want to teach. I mean, that's how I teach on the blog, not saying that professionals can't benefit from it. There have been a few professional companies that were like we'd like to use this as kind of our onboarding for getting people started because nobody, and for me too. That's what we use. It's our onboarding for new people the first day, they sit down and go through the course so they can learn how to do epoxy, how to scrape windows, how to deal with hardware, all the kinds of things the mechanicals ropes all that and they've used it there. But I think if you're a homeowner, a DIY or even if you've got a had one student who was like, I might I want to restore the windows, I'm not going to do it, I'm going to have my contractor do it, but I'm going to buy the course for him, so that he can go through it. And he can restore my windows, because there's nobody in my town that restores windows, and I need them done. And I was like, that's a great use of it for anybody who, you know, knows how to swing a hammer in the slightest can learn how to do this stuff.

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:00:19  
Right? Absolutely. And I do know, you know, people sometimes get daunted by a price of something, but when I looked at the price of your course, which we will link to, you know, in the show notes, too. I'm thinking it's still less than having a professional restore your window. And that's one window. So what if you have 12? What if you have 15? What if you have 142? Like someone I know who lives where I live? 

Scott Sidler  1:00:43  
Oh my goodness. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:00:44  
They're not all double hung, but basically the it's

Scott Sidler  1:00:47  
That's still a lot of windows,

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:00:48  
it's all the same? Yeah. 

Scott Sidler  1:00:50  
Wow. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:00:51  
You know, I can apply the principles of restoration to all windows that I have in this house. 

Scott Sidler  1:00:56  
Yeah, 

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:00:57  
It's insanity. It really is. But so yeah, I think the return on your investment comes pretty quickly. Rather than looking at it as a one time, you have this one time cost for you basically a lifetime of window restoration help.

Scott Sidler  1:01:12  
That's what we're trying to position. I mean, we even set up like a quick study thing for $149. It was like, if you think you can do all this in 30 days, you can jump in, you can get it, you don't get all the benefits, because we're constantly adding new content to it too, because there's always something new to learn, like I just added something on cutting laminated glass the other day, but that you can just do it in 30 days and be like, Okay, I know what I need, you can get in, get out and be done. But for the rest of it, it's $597. Or you can get another one that's another $200, where you get a couple hours from one of the people who work for me that are like one of our project leads to walk through with you for those specific issues. But that's how we tried to position it was like, if we're like half the cost of restoring one window professionally, which it's actually a little bit less than that, then, you know, 10-20 windows for $600. Roughly, it was like that saves you 10s of 1000s of dollars. And I I mean I we've referred some clients were like, We can't afford you. It's too expensive, like, well then go through the class. Yeah, if you really want to do it yourself. And, and some people are like, absolutely, especially in these days too like working from home, if you've got the ability, you know, people get tired of seeing their windows when they work from home. I've noticed there's been so much Home Improvement just in general done by people this past year compared to years past when they could escape to work for 40 hours a week. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:02:29  
Right 

Scott Sidler  1:02:29  
Now it's like I'm stuck looking at this stuff. And these don't look as attractive as I want them to.

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:02:34  
Right, right.

Scott Sidler  1:02:36  
Yeah, it can be a huge money saver.

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:02:38  
Yeah, that's great. All right. Well, thank you so much. Where can they find this class? This is through Teachable, is that correct?

Scott Sidler  1:02:44  
Yeah, we set it up through Teachable so you kind of set up your own login and you can go in and it's self-paced. And you can find it, you can just go to TheCraftsmanBlog.com. And up at the top there is a menu for courses, and that's called DIY Window Restoration. Or if on your on Instagram. It's in my bio there, the link is in the bio for it.

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:03:04  
Absolutely. which I'll link I'll link Instagram. I'll link the Craftsman blog, your course. All this paint stuff. I think I've said that like five times during this episode, but you know,

Scott Sidler  1:03:12  
Are you going to put links in the show notes?

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:03:15  
Yeah. Oh, yeah, I think I will. I think a good idea. I will put links in the show notes.

Scott Sidler  1:03:20  
You could put links in the show notes if you want. I think that would be helpful too.

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:03:23  
I could put some links in the show notes. Okay, I'll do that.

Scott Sidler  1:03:26  
Let's go that direction. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:03:27  
Okay. All right. Well, Scott, always a pleasure having you here. Thank you so much for coming today. sitting down with me. I hope to one day see you in person again and we can restore some windows together. That would be great. 

Scott Sidler  1:03:39  
So much fun.

Yeah, always good talking with you, and I look forward to the next time.

Stacy Grinsfelder  1:03:44  
All right, great. Thanks. I got one more thing to say. And that is, Thank you for listening to today's episode. Be sure to follow True Tales From Old Houses and Blake Hill House on Facebook and Instagram. And for more information about this episode, including shownotes, transcripts, merchandise, and to sign up for the monthly newsletter. Visit TrueTalesFromOldHouses.com. Until next time,