Three must-haves for a good paint job

Paint preparation is one of the ugly sides of home-improvement projects. All that sanding and scraping and cleaning -- no one really likes to do it, but it's essential to a good paint job. So, like it or not, it's a step that you don't want to skip or do poorly, since the quality of your finished product pretty much depends on it.

There are three basic things to remember for properly preparing any surface that you want to paint -- get it clean, smooth and dry.

CLEAN IT UP

Paint will stick to most of the things it comes in contact with, which is not necessarily a good thing. If the surface being painted is dusty, for example, the paint will stick to the dust. Since the dust is not well-adhered to the surface below, you have an obvious recipe for paint failure.

It's important that the surface being painted has been cleaned to remove dust, dirt, grease and anything else that could get under the paint film and prevent it from forming a solid bond.

For previously painted exterior surfaces, such as siding, dust everything off with a soft brush attached to a painter's extension pole. If the old paint is in generally good condition, you can also spray off the dust and dirt with a pressure washer that is set on low pressure and wide spray. Do not use high pressure or a concentrated spray nozzle, which can drive water into the siding.

For interior surfaces such as cabinets or moldings, dust the surface off with a brush to remove dust (use an inexpensive chip brush -- not your good paint brushes), then clean the surface with a degreaser to remove any grease residue. If the surface is glossy, lightly sand it to roughen it up slightly, then wipe or vacuum it off to remove any dust.

For new wood, such as new cabinets or furniture, your best bet is to use a tack cloth, available from any paint store or home center. A tack cloth is simply a piece of lint-free fabric that has been treated with a material to make it slightly sticky so that it will pick up fine dirt and dust particles.

A SOLID START

The same holds true for painting over old paint that is not well-adhered. The new paint film will stick to the old paint, and again, since that old paint is not attached to the surface below, the new paint job will eventually fail. There's simply no easy way to remove old paint, and you have four basic choices:

Scraping: The tried and true method is to use a hand paint scraper and scrape off any loose paint. A pull-type scraper works best for most situations, and helps prevent gouging into the wood below. Scrape with the grain in both directions until all that remains is paint that is well-adhered to the underlying surface. For small areas, a push-type scraper, such as a putty knife, will work as well.

Sanding: This is the other most common paint removal method, used alone or in combination with scraping. A pad sander works best for most situations, using an open-coat, coarse-grit paper for the initial paint removal. Avoid rotary sanders, which can gouge and raise the grain on some older siding, and belt sanders, which remove too much underlying material.

Chemicals: For small areas, such as a piece of furniture, you can use a chemical stripper to remove paint, varnish and other finishes. Follow the manufacturer's instructions carefully, and make sure you have adequate ventilation.

Heat: Using a heat gun will work to remove paint in smaller areas, but it can be dangerous. You can damage the surface you're removing the paint from, and even worse, the heated paint film or the wood can catch fire. Skip this method.

Remember that a paint film is very thin, so whatever you've left on the surface is going to show through the new paint. Once you're done with the scraping and other paint removal work, sand the stripped areas with a medium to medium-fine grit of sandpaper to smooth out the wood and feather down the edges of any remaining paint.

DRY IT OUT

Preparation rule number three is that the surface to be painted needs to be dry. This applies to actual water that is standing on the surface being painted, as well as to material that is damp, such as wood that's been out in the weather. Any type of excessive moisture, either on or in the wood, can cause the paint to fail.

If you have pressure washed your siding, make sure it is completely dry before painting. Do not paint outside early in the day when moisture might be present on the wood, or on days of extremely high humidity. Inside, if you have washed the cabinets or other wood, they need to be completely dry again before applying the paint.

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Fed says recession risk trumps inflation fears

Which is worse: Recession or inflation?

Those two economic ills, the Federal Reserve’s primary concerns, call for opposite policies. Despite recent inflation pressure from higher food and energy prices, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday, using unusually straightforward language, that the Fed is focused primarily on cutting interest rates further to try to keep the economy from sliding into recession.

“They're in a really tough situation,” said Jason Brady, a mutual fund manager at Thornburg Investment Management. “At the end of day they have a dual mandate" to keep employment low and inflation under control.

In Brady's view, unemployment is still relatively low, despite a sharp jump last month to 5 percent, its highest level in two years. But he said he is worried about the inflation rate "getting away from them.”

Rising oil prices, along with costlier commodity prices, have recently pushed inflation above the Fed’s unofficial upper "comfort limit" of 2 percent. Though Bernanke acknowledged the upward pressure on so-called core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, he said inflation expectations are “reasonably well-anchored.”

That assessment is critical to the Fed’s ability to shore up a sagging economy with lower interest rates. If inflation begins to accelerate, the only reliable antidote in modern Fed history has been higher rates. A commitment to lower rates could also do further damage to the strength of the dollar; higher rates are usually needed to boost demand for dollar-based investments like U.S. Treasury debt. (The dollar fell sharply following Bernanke's remarks.)

The Fed is constantly juggling the opposing risks of setting rates too low to keep inflation in check and setting them too high and choking off growth. Steering that course has never been easy. Policymakers don’t generally tip their hand on future decisions because of the risk that a subsequent change in course could spook financial markets.

But for the moment, the Fed seems to believe that the risks are tipped heavily toward recession. If that outlook is correct, a downturn in the economy could, by itself, ease inflation pressures as demand slows for energy and other raw materials.“Inflation has perked up,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. “I think what the Fed is saying is that they’re taking a calculated gamble that they have some flexibility that inflation won’t keep perking up.”

Though the Fed has apparently determined that a slowdown is the greater of two evils, the central bank’s official forecast still calls for the economy to dodge a recession. Asked about his personal view on the prospects for recession, Bernanke reminded his audience that because of a lag in the collection and analysis of economic data, recessions are often well under way before they can be confirmed by economists.

“You really can't make a determination about that kind of thing until well after the event,” he said, recalling his days at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private research group whose pronouncements about the timing and duration of recessions are considered the official record of business cycles.

But consumers, investors and voters don’t wait for economists to weigh in before deciding that a recession is near — or under way. Bernanke acknowledged that recent economic indicators, including last month's weak showing in the labor market and uptick in unemployment, “raise the downside risks.” A report Thursday showing that the recent holiday shopping season was the worst for retailers in three years confirmed that consumers began cutting back in December.

Economists have been warning of the threat of a recession for months, largely because of a steep downturn in the housing market after a prolonged boom. Now, some are openly predicting that the economy will slide into a recession this year — if it's not already in one.

On Wednesday investment bank Goldman Sachs, which so far has dodged the multibillion-dollar mortgage-related losses that other Wall Street firms have suffered, said it expects a recession this year, and predicted the Fed will cut the key overnight lending rate to 2.5 percent by the third quarter. The rate currently stands at a two-year low of 4.25 percent after a series of three rate cuts last year.

After months of criticism that the central bank has not been cutting rates aggressively enough and not spelling out its rate-cutting plans clearly enough, Bernanke’s comments Thursday were unusually frank for a Fed chairman.

"We stand ready to take substantive additional action as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks," he said.

But it’s not clear that those cuts will come soon enough to give the economy the boost it needs to skirt recession. Rate cuts usually take months to work their way through the system, though some analysts note that lower rates now could have an immediate impact on homeowners who face rising rates on adjustable mortgages.

Still, the financial markets are more interested in seeing the Fed actually cut rates than just hearing they are coming.

“What we have here is a crisis of confidence,” said David Kelley, a market strategist at J.P. Morgan. “The more important thing for the Federal Reserve to do right now is, don't talk about future rate cuts. Decide on where the federal funds rate needs to be at the end and get it there now. I think it's a sort of drip, drip, drip of interest rate cuts that's undermining business confidence.”

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