Painting Part 2

I found an article pretty quickly from a Swedish building site about using järnvitriol to treat houses to give that nice silver-grey color we like. The key quote was in the Q & A below, which translates as:

Q: Can you paint over a facade treated with järnvitriol?
A: Yes, slamfärg or solvent-based paints work.

This article, plus Olle's research, gave me a bit more hope about successfully being able to paint our house after all.

The real kicker came a few days later, when we met up with old friends Lotta and Jan-Erik, who coincidentally enough, live a few islands over, and are good friends with Annika and Olle.

Jan-Erik is a man of much experience and many friends in the archipelago, and he gave me the name of a friend who is the MD of a paint company who might be able to give me advice. When I got back to Texas, I sent an email with a few photos attached, asking for advice. Within 24 hours, I received the following reply:

1. It is always best to keep using the same product that was used from the beginning or in your case do nothing and accept the look of the faces. 
2. It could be possible to paint the faces with a linseed oil based paint. Then you would have to repaint the southern face every 10-15 years. We don’t have any experiences of painting on sprayed surfaces [I told him we used a sprayer to apply the järnvitriol] so we can’t guarantee the result. But you could test this on your southern face.

One of the things that gave us pause about slamfärg was that it was a bit transparent, so covering our spots might be a problem, especially if we went for a lighter shade. It also can be a bit chalky, and requiring more frequent touch-ups.

But linseed oil paint? That's worth looking into. And we will, in part 3!

4 Shades of Grey

Sooz and I started looking into linseed oil paint and we found a number of things that we liked. It's a uniquely Swedish product, and has been used on homes for perhaps a thousand years. Linoljefärg is a "natural" paint; it essentially is made up of only the oil with added natural pigments. It also sticks well to most any surface, and should be opaque enough to cover our spots.

One drawback is the fact that its cleanup is a lot messier, (and perhaps dangerous) being oil-based, rather than the wash-and-go acrylic we've been using. But that seems like a small price to pay.

We found a company that carries a large range of linseed oil paint from Skåne. Two things we like about this company (bedsides Emil, their employee) is the wide range of colours available, and that we could buy small sample pots (at 60kr each) for us to do our own experimenting.

Sooz and I decided on four shades to try out: Silvergrå, Mellangrå, Varmgrå, and Mörkgrå. For our English-speaking readers, the colours are, excitingly, silver-grey, medium-grey, warm grey, and dark grey.

I ordered a set of four samples, which are now safely at Rutger's house. Next time we're there, probably in mid-October, we will paint a few test patches to see how the paint holds up in the months we're away. If all goes well, we could call Krister back for a painting job a year from now!

Paint colors

Sooz went through a huge number of options when we repainted our Texas kitchen. Being color blind myself (and a fan of primary colors), I found the process a bit difficult. Sooz would show me a selection of paint chips that all looked pretty much the same to me, yet I felt compelled to provide some sort of input.

In the end, the kitchen island was painted "Moose Mousse", the walls "Apple Blossom", the breakfast room "Raffia", and the living room is in "Cliff". The dining room is now covered in "Sheer Pout" and our office is "Morning Sand".

I mention all of these color names because of an amusing article in the New York Times about the trend for obscure paint naming. It's worth a read.

As for our stuga, I've spoken to Krister, the house painting expert on Nämdö. He's seen our place and he will be back in September to talk to us about the best way to go forward. After talking to a bunch of people and researching a bit, we know we need a specific type of paint called slamfärg (literally "mud paint"). The traditional red color of Swedish houses comes from the copper mines in Falun, commonly known as Falu red. Slamfärg is a derivative of the standard Falu red; it contains more linseed oil, among other things.

Red is by far the predominant color, but yellow and grey are also popular. The good news is that we can get slamfärg in most any color we want. The bad news (see my previous post) is that we can get just about any color we want. We had chosen a medium grey which just about matches the non-darkened exposures of the house. I have to say I'm wavering on that now. Perhaps a darker grey would be better. Maybe even a greenish or brownish grey?

We will talk further with Krister when we see him and of course we'll have to think this over thoroughly before choosing, as I assume he'll be painting next spring.

Painting, the final chapter

I posted about three weeks ago about how much we liked Ove's paint job on the front of the house. Not only have we protected the wood, the house looks great, and it smells good, too!

I asked him for a quote to do the other two facades. The short side still looks perfect, but the back of the house has an issue to address.

We've kept the trees around back; many of them are quite close to the house. The shade and moisture there has allowed a bit of green growth. I hesitate to say mold or algae, but it's clear the wood there needs to be brushed off and protected.

From the wood's point of view, the front of the house was clearly too hot & dry, and the back appears to be too shady and wet. Thankfully, linseed oil paint can fix both of these problems!

Ove's price to paint the house was high by Texas standards, but not really by archipelago rates. The best news is that he thinks he can be done before we return in July! It will be great to have that all done.

We decided not to paint the guest house right now; we have to economise in some ways, and it's a simple enough job that we can do it ourselves, perhaps next year.

UPDATE: They've already started. I caught a glimpse of the workers on my dropcam, and Annika sent me a photo of the back of the house with the caption "looking good"! So it will all be done by the time we arrive, for sure.

Wire brushes

There have been many posts about the discoloration on the front of our house and my desire to address that by painting over it. The last we left this subject in October, I painted a test patch with linseed oil paint to see how it withstood the winter.

At Tim's suggestion, I took a wire brush and cleaned off a section of the wood before painting. My plan was to paint over both brushed and non-brushed sections to see if the paint took differently.

I was surprised at how relatively easily a lot of the black discoloration came off, pretty much as a powder. This makes sense as the jarn vitrol is an iron-based product, and I'm sure what I was removing was a form of iron oxide.

The more I ponder it, though, I think I need to brush the face of the house before painting. Paint must adhere better to the wood without the iron in-between; that's just common sense to me.

Of course it is easy to sit at a desk in Texas and say, "sure it's simple to hand-brush 20 square meters of the house!" I am sure I will curse my decision, once up on a ladder this summer. But I think it's the best thing to do.

Our friends at Amazon have a ridiculous array of wire brushes available. I plan to pick out a couple of types and see how they work out during our April visit. I'll do the brushing deed in July, and have the house painted in September. That's the plan, anyways. There has been a lot of discussion about this over the years, and things always seem to change. But that's the plan for now.

Further Fungus Follow-ups

Stefan sent me a informative reply, which I can boil down to:

• Our spots are fungus, caused mostly by exposure to a humid environment
• The jarn vitrol colors the wood but doesn't protect it from fungus, algae, etc.
• The splotches are cosmetic and do not impact the structure of the wood at all
• His own house has a few areas much like mine
• There's a specific product I can use to remove the fungus if I wish
• Stefan provided me the name and phone number of his fungus advisor and I've asked Rutger to give him a call on my behalf

I also received an email from Scott Hedges, a contributor to the LamiDesign blog. His advice was much like Stefan's, and he gave me some specific advice on what kind of paint/stain product I might use.

So the bottom line is that we don't have to do anything at all, the problem is just cosmetic. If we want a different look (other than splotchy), we'll need to paint. We might need to treat the house before painting; that's still an open question. But at least we have a good line to get a final answer on procedures and products.

UPDATE 1: Rutger spoke to one expert today who said it's very hard to tell if we killed the fungus with our previous treatment in September, and in any case, it could well regrow by next spring anyways. We can leave it and see how the house looks next year with no harm, but if we want to paint, we should scrub it again before painting. The good news it's only the one exposure of the house, not the whole thing.

Painting

I've a posted lot in the in the past about the black splotchyness on the front of our house.

This has proven to be a fairly intractable problem. At first, I thought it was mold. Rutger and I applied a mold solution a while ago but that didn't seem to make a difference. There hasn't been any change over the past year and a half as far as my photographs can tell.

It doesn't seem to be a problem with the jarn vitrol, either; the other two exposures, and the small house all look just the way we had hoped. It has to be something with the interaction of sun and wind and rain on the exposed front of the house.

Our plan from last fall was to ask Christer, the archipelago's paint expert, to paint the front exposure in a color that matched the rest of the house. He visited, and we even picked out the paint type and color.

However, Christer investigated and became worried about painting over the jarn vitrol. Rutger and I also spoke to some painting specialists and they both told us the same thing; that painting over the darned jarn was not going to be successful. Our two options were to wait a few more seasons to let the wood weather it away, or to sand-blast to remove the wood's top layer.

Needless to say, we're going to wait. The condition of our house's wood is fine, and we can watch the spots to see if they grow, which would indicate mold again.

The main reason we chose the natural silvering of the jarn vitrol was that we wanted our house to fit into the landscape. We perched our house on top of a rock: we're not big on cutting down trees or landscaping. Sooz and I like the idea of our house turning grey and fitting in. We've got a bit more fitting in than we bargained for, but that's something we're going to live with.

Painting once again

The paint we have purchased is from Ottoson in Skåne, experts in linseed oil painting. They have a YouTube channel with lots of English-language videos about using their product, which is pretty impressive, since most of their production is in Sweden, with only a little bit in northern Europe.

I looked at all of their videos and this one seems to be exactly what I was thinking of for our house:



I contacted the company for a bit of advice and, through an email conversation, they agreed that the 50% paint/40% oil/10% balsam turpentine is the way to go. It should cover in one coat, dry quickly, and be able to be applied in temperatures as low as 5°C. 

Although I have the paint already, we will have to shop for the oil and turpentine when we're in Sweden, before we head out to the house in October. More on that next trip soon.

Saturday morning

It's warm and sunny yet again today. It seems warm but it's still 30 degrees cooler than Texas!

We had a fabulous dinner of Sooz's Mexican casserole with Olle and Annika out on our well-lit deck last night, and tonight Janne's joining us for a cookout.

We finished the first coat of primer in the little house. Olle loaned me his sander and I touched up a few spots on the deck. We wrapped up well before 3 so we're now just hanging out.

After some discussion and investigation, we've decided to paint the front of the house. Sooz has decided on a slightly yellowish grey, and Janne is going to put us in contact with his painter, who does a lot of work in the archipelago. He may be able to stop by next week before Sooz and Grant leave, it would be better to discuss that in person instead of over the internet!

More details on the paint, and a few other projects, in the coming weeks. For now, it's time to chill.

Fungus redux

When Sooz and I went to the house a few weeks ago, I was anxious to see how well our fungus treatment worked. Would the house look different?

I can report now the house looks exactly the same, even the experimental patch I had scrubbed with a toothbrush and undiluted solution.

This doesn't necessarily mean our work was a failure, though. We could well have killed the fungus, and only the discoloration remains. I looked at the wood very closely, and the dark spots just seem to be colored in, almost as if it had been stained. There's no obvious coating or growth of any kind.

Janne told us about the paint he's using on the stuga he and Tony are building. It comes in two parts, first a primer which is thin and is absorbed by the wood to seal it. The color coat goes over the primer and is very thick and long-wearing, lasting 15 years, according to Janne.

So we've decided to paint, probably next summer. In addition to covering the dark blotches, I think the wood needs to be sealed better; there were a few wet spots inside after I hosed the house in September. This product should do the trick.

However, Rutger is worried about inadvertently painting over live fungus, and sealing in a bigger problem. I can see his point. When I'm out to the house at Christmas, I'll pry off a dark sliver and see if I can take it for analysis, just to be sure we're doing the right thing.

That leaves us for the colour choice, but I'll leave that for another blog post!

Painting Part 1

I've posted many times, as recently as a month ago, about the discoloration on the front of our house, and our desire to treat it. We thought for a while that it was fungus or mold of some sort, althought without an expert chemical analysis it was hard to tell for sure. Rutger and I put a chemical treatment on the house almost two years ago, and the spots have not changed appreciably since.

We thought about painting, and had spoken to one of the archipelago's painters, Krister, about using the traditional slamfärg on the spotty front exposure, in a color that matched the nice silvering along the rest of our house.

However, after some investigating, Krister felt it wouldn't be a good idea to paint over our the järnvitriol we put on the house three years ago. So we were back to square one: it probably isn't mold or fungus (or it it was, it was inert now), and it didn't seem we could paint over it, so we would have to just let it be for the time being.

We headed to the house this summer, resigned to just ignore the discolorations and get on with it. However, like a thoughtful neighbor (and a great builder and handyman), Olle told me he did some investigating about painting over jarnvitriol. He felt it was quite possible to do, so Sooz and I started thinking and googling on the subject once again.

We found a number of interesting things, which we'll save for further posts, as this one is getting a little long!

It's been a great two weeks

We're back in London now after a fantastic time spent in our second home. The weather has remained sunny (and worryingly, dry) the whole two weeks.  Some of the highlights:

• Marcia, Rutger and Camille came for the first weekend.
• The boat is out of storage and after a washup, it was in great shape. 
• We went to the old Guns Livs on Nämdö. The restaurant isn't open yet, and the store is operating at half capacity, but the new owners are talking a great story for the future.
• The Nämdö library was open the day we visited and we spoke to Gunilla about the fibre installation. Lots of work was evident on the island; power cables are being laid on the ground along with the fiber cables. Eventually all of the power poles will be taken away, which will improve the views. She told us the same work will start in a few months on Aspö. I'm becoming increasingly confident that we will have fiber installed next year.
• We attended the yearly island meeting, and Sooz followed along with the proceedings pretty well!
• Sooz also did a bit of morning yoga, and she attended the jewelry-making class on Ladholmen.
• We had a nice dinner with Peter and Jeanette at our place, and a lovely meal at Annika and Olle's.
• The World Cup kept us all entertained, and we gathered in Sofia and Johan's barn to watch the Sweden-England quarterfinal.
• Sooz arranged two successful Mat Hem deliveries. We have plenty of food now!!!
• Ove, the painter, came by to paint our little house with the linseed oil paint and it looks a lot better.
• I didn't have too many building tasks this time around but I managed to keep myself entertained with lots of little jobs.

There is a photo album available of all these activities on my Flickr page.

We'll be back for a long weekend in a few weeks, so stay tuned for more to come!

In the Arlanda departure lounge

It's about 3PM on yet another beautiful day (apparently it's raining in London. Ugh.)

Sooz and Grant just left on SAS and I'm a half-hour behind on BA as I cashed in a mileage ticket. Rutger and I went to Bauhaus this morning and showed photos of our splotched front of house to their paint expert. He diagnosed fungus, and we bought a solution to treat the wood. We will have to do that anyways even if we want to paint later, and who knows, that might clear up the spots and make painting unnecessary.

I plan to apply the stuff this August when we hope to come back for a 3-4 day trip. Then we can let it take effect over the next few months. I also got a roller blind at IKEA for the window over the couch.

The bus ride from Stavsnäs yesterday was a bear. Hot, slow, and crowded. I am coming in line with Margaret's dislike for that ride. She takes the longer (but more civilised) Saltsjöbaden boat whenever she can.

Anyways, we'll be in home sweet home soon. We will pick up Ollie on our way from the airport so I'll make one last post of that to close out our holiday.

The painting is done

Our painters, Ove and Leif, came by this morning and polished off their paint job.

We are very pleased with their work. Not only were things done neatly and professionally, but the colour itself is just what we were hoping for.

Ove told me the wood was very dry, and that it readily absorbed the linseed oil paint. I'm glad we got it done, for protective as well as aesthetic reasons.

I am thinking very seriously about painting the rest of the house, as well as the little house, too. Ove and I talked about doing that, and he will be sending me a quote.

Introduction V

It's been over a year and a half since my last introductory post, so I thought it time to update the introduction series on this blog. New readers should click on that link first to get a concise summary on what's happened over the years.

I had bragged in my introductory last post the blog had over 60,000 visits. As of today, that figure is nearly 110,000! Many of those new visitors are thanks to the link from the very cool website Cabin Porn.

We've done a few things to the house over the past 18 months. Most significant is the painting of the exterior with linseed oil paint. I also built a large deck this summer which gives us a significant new living space.

I made a list in 2008 of all the things I wanted to do to the house. With the exception of a fireplace or heat pump, the list is now complete. We are definitely moving from 'building' to 'living' in our little cabin!

Personal circumstances have made that transition easier. I stopped working this year and have found myself sliding a bit towards retirement. I'd like to get back to work, but I haven't yet found the right thing. So Sooz and I took advantage of all my free time to spend most of this past summer on Aspö. Being there for a month is a lot different than a week or two! We were able to connect a lot more fully with island life and our friends there.

I've been keeping the blog updated 8-10 times a month, with my usual mix of practical, cultural, and especially toilet-related information. Given my greater free time, I've tried to make the posts a bit longer and more polished. Feedback on that is appreciated.

Grant has graduated college and he's working at a job he really likes. Ollie is fully settled into Texas life. I haven't yet driven Sooz crazy from being constantly underfoot. Life is good.

Mold

Not Bob, but black. I've written about the dark blotches on the front of the house before. Looking at the photos I've taken over time, the transformation of the house from fresh pine to a dark grey is clear to see. On the front, however, it's not just a nice weathered grey but grey with black mottling.

Margaret wrote me recently they she thought the spots were getting worse. As I posted before, it seems the they're a type of mold or fungus. It's natural they grow only on the most exposed side of the house; moisture is necessary for mold growth.

When we go next week, I plan to use fungus treatment on the wood. Rutger and I bought a solution, as advised by the expert at Bauhaus, and Janne is lending me his power washer. At the moment, Sooz and I plan to brush on the fungus-killer, and then give it a good power rinsing. There's some thought about using bleach and/or soap, but I think I'll be conservative and try this stuff first. We plan to be back in mid-October, and we can be more aggressive then if needed.

I assume this will just kill the mold, not remove its effects altogether.  That being the case, we'll still have to paint at least that exposure of the house next summer, if we can decide on a color!

Security

Last fall, I met with Lars, a local handyman who is going to clean and seal our deck, and (finally) paint the front of the house this spring. I've been pestering him with videos and emails about exactly what I want these past few weeks. He has withstood all of my input with good grace.

Lars recently told me he's retired from the police force and will be working full-time on a firm that offers security and management services in the archipelago. Their website, obevakning.se, (in English here) is one of the most beautiful and professional I've seen.

The idea is a good one. Most of the people I know on Aspö are there quite frequently, so keeping an eye on one's property is easy for them. But many more island residents aren't.

A guy like me is a perfect candidate for Lars' services: far away, and with little ability to address problems as they occur. Fortunately, I am blessed with such great neighbors as Olle and Annika, who really go out of their way to look after our house, especially during the winter.

Although I don't see myself using his security services, it is good to know somebody like Lars, both personally and professionally. And his website is a real winner!

Guns Livs is no more

I've written many times in the past about Guns Livs, the grocery store on Nämdö. Its been in the same family for over 50 years. People's options about Guns on Aspö are divided. Some of us find its slightly worn-out store and spotty service part of its charm. Others long for a bit more professionalism and modern service.

This past summer was the last one for Guns and her family. The store, restaurant, and marina has was sold to new owners, who stayed mysteriously quiet until the end of the year. 

It turns out that the transaction took longer to complete than planned, but now the new owners have published their vision on the Gunslivs website. The key statement is this:

In the coming years of 2018 we will of course keep the store, the restaurant and the marina open as usual. But a little change will be noticeable already next year - we will clean, paint and freshen up. We want to get to know Nämdö, its conditions, residents and visitors.

From 2019 onwards we want to further develop the existing grocery with expanded range and better service and accessibility. The bar will have a facelift - both interior / exterior. Here we want to create a meeting place in the archipelago where everyone can socialize and enjoy the amazing environment, good food and drink. We also want to invest in archipelago leisure activities and offer a modern and interesting range. Together with the municipality we want to continue to develop accommodation for more year-round accommodation and accommodation for tourists. This in order for Nämdö to be an obvious centerpiece in the archipelago - a unique place for reflection and recreation as well as adventure.

The general approach is that the new owners want to expand Nämdö to become more of a "living" archipelago. They stress that this is closely in line with the kommun's plan to maintain a sustainable archipelago. It's an interesting balance between keeping things simple and charming but perhaps a bit shabby, and offering more modern amenities to draw new people to the area and allow it to thrive.

This will be an interesting development to watch over the next few summers!

Fungus Update

Time for a little update on the main reason for our trip this weekend: the fungus.

Rutger and I applied the fungicide pretty liberally. We brushed it on all the stained areas and let it set for 15 minutes. I rinsed it off even more liberally with the hose, and we left the house still quite wet the next day. As an experiment on Sunday morning, I applied straight solution with a toothbrush to one dark spot to see if it acted differently than the other areas. 

But I can't say that we really accomplished anything- at least not yet. The dark patches still look darker than the surrounding wood. Does this mean the fungus is dead or not? The goal was to arrest the spread of the fungus; have we done that? Is it safe to paint over all this now? I don't know for sure, and I don't know how to get that answer definitely, short of bringing a fungus expert in. I find that very frustrating.

To make matters worse, my rinsing of the house caused a few watermarks and drip streaks to appear on the interior walls. The good news is that Janne told us lemon juice would remove the marks,so Rutger rescued a lemon from the previous night's gin & tonic, and went after the marks with a Q-tip. Sure enough it worked like a charm. Of course, now I have to go over the walls on my next trip. One step forward, one step back. 

I will be very interested to see how the house looks when we're there next month. I hope that will give me some reassurance and direction going into the winter.  

Other house work

Sorry for the lack of posts. Things have been pretty busy on the Texan front. We've just had our kitchen here refurbished, which went pretty smoothly, overall. Having a huge building store down the street and a bunch of eager tradesman in the neighborhood makes it a lot easier than building on Aspö!

In some ways, though, it was more difficult, for two reasons. First, this is our main house. We were able to gloss over things to some extent in our stuga by thinking, "it's only a cabin". We also didn't want anything too nice out there because we want the rustic lifestyle, and pratically speaking, we will only be in the house a month or two a year. That doesn't apply to our house here. We're living in it most every day, and we also have resale value to think about.

The second problem is that, frankly, we had too many choices. There are hundreds of kinds of countertops to choose from, just at our local store. What material? What thickness? What color or texture? Sooz must have looked at fifty different sink/faucet combos. Our new fridge, stove, and dishwasher were each winnowed down from dozens of candidates and vendors. (The issue of paint colors will deserve its own post in the coming days).

Recent research is finding that having too many choices actually lead to stress and dissatisfaction. When one has many possible choices, it's easy to think "did I make the right one?" Having fewer options makes one much more likely to be satisfied with one's decision. After our kitchen project, I can say the theory does indeed work in practice. Nearly three years ago, Sooz knocked out our whole kitchen (plus a lot more) in one day at IKEA.

The good news is that we're happy with the way it all turned out, and our experience of building on Aspö made us far more educated clients this time around.