7 Tips For Taking Care Of Your Deck in Denver Metro, CO
When you have a deck outback, there are many things you need to bear in mind — the deck is difficult in itself in terms of construction, and you then have to take care of the deck itself.
Of course, taking care of a deck is a much different process than the construction of the deck, but it is worth mentioning that maintaining the deck is just as important if not more important for the long term health of it.
With that being the case, here are seven tips for taking care of your deck in Denver Metro, CO.
1. Sweep Regularly
The frequency with which you sweep your deck is entirely up to you but of course if you find that leaves and other debris regularly find themselves on your deck more often, you may want to increase the frequency.
You will find that during the fall you might be sweeping more often and in other times of the year you sweep less often but don’t forget that even when it snows, it’s worth sweeping a bit.
2. Trim Nearby Branches
When you have a tree that is growing near your deck or even multiple trees, one thing you should be careful about doing is checking out the branches that are growing from the tree and how close they are to your deck.
When you have branches that are too close to your deck, it’s worth trimming in order to avoid the possibility of the branch falling off in a strong wind and maybe even damage the deck.
3. Re-Stain When Needed
Though of course we want to think that stain will be on our deck for many years to come, the truth is that on occasion you need to re-stain the deck to keep it looking good.
The process for staining your deck anew is not all that different from the original staining, though in some ways it is considerably easier to stain it when it is already stained.
4. Sand Problem Areas
There are some times when you will see areas on the deck that need to be sanded due to danger or other issues.
For example, if you see a bit of wood sticking out that could injure you, it would be worth sanding so that nobody gets clothing ripped or worse when walking by.
5. Look Out For Rot
When there is rot on your deck, it can easily spread — but not if you look out for it and remove it first.
Of course, it’s going to be easier to remove a little bit of rot than a lot — and that’s why you should keep an eye out for it and remove it.
If it gets bad enough you are going to have to remove the entire board in order to take care of it.
6. Wash Your Deck
It should be noted that your deck will have to be periodically washed — after all, just use of the deck on a regular basis will get it dirty — you bring dirt from walking around and that will dirty up the deck.
Even if you don’t wash it often, just making the habit of washing your deck on occasion will help to keep your deck clean and in good shape.
7. Inspect It With The Change Of The Season
Lastly, when it comes to inspecting your deck, you should at least consider making it happen with every change of the season.
This tends to be a good time to inspect your deck — which isn’t to say that you should not add inspections in between these — because when the seasons change you will see the most changes that will ultimately lead to your needing to inspecting the deck.
Don’t settle for just any painter when you can get the attention to detail and professionalism from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting in Denver Metro, CO. Call us today to speak with one of our professional color consultants.
5 Money Saving Techniques For Interior Painting in Denver Metro, CO
When you are looking to paint the interior of your home, it is natural to want to bring down the overall cost of the painting project — any painting project can get expensive, and if you can bring it down without sacrificing quality, that’s a good thing.
Of course, if you take the time and care to figure out some ways to save money on your interior painting project.
Let us now look at five money saving techniques for interior painting in Denver Metro, CO.
1. Minimize The Number Of Colors You Use
This one is fairly simple and it makes sense if you think about it — when you are out there buying paint, you have to buy several gallons sometimes, and that is just for buying one color.
If you end up choosing multiple colors, there are several more gallons that you end up buying, and you often will end up buying more gallons of paint than you actually need — more on this later.
The better thing for you to do in buying your paint is to try to make use of fewer colors — for when you use fewer colors, you will buy less paint overall — and this will save you money.
2. Prepare Your Paint Surface Well
Though it may not seem like it would be an obvious way to save money on your interior paintwork, it actually will save you money in the long term if you are careful in your preparation.
This means things like cleaning up the surface prior to beginning to paint as well as things like making sure that your surface is as smooth as possible by sanding it first and using a primer before you apply the first coat of paint.
The reason this will save you money in painting is that you will ultimately not have to paint as often, and so you will end up paying less for your interior paintwork just by having taken the time to prepare for it first.
3. Don’t Use Cheap Paint
Another seemingly not intuitive thing is that you should actually look for the kind of paint that isn’t the absolute cheapest but rather look for the paint that costs a bit more.
Here again, the reasoning is that if you buy the absolute cheapest paint, you will be saving money up front but then in a couple of years when you find yourself needing to touch up the paintwork or even do it again from scratch, you will not have saved money.
Better to put up a little more money upfront and therefore have an interior paint job that lasts considerably longer — and one which will be less likely to give you problems such as peeling, and may even be significantly easier to apply.
That ease of applying will make the interior paint job that much more pleasant for you to do.
4. Rags For Drop Cloths
If over an extended period of time you save up cloths — things like t-shirts that get ripped and become unusable, towels that are just beyond use, and that sort of thing, you will be able to save on the cost of drop cloths.
You can use these rags in place of the drop cloths and be sure that you have had a positive environmental impact at the same time.
5. Quality Paint Brushes
Lastly, think about your paintbrushes — where are you getting them?
If you are thinking that the dollar section is your best friend for paintbrushes, think again — you’ll save money at the register but then will suffer when you are applying the paint and find bristles in the paint on the wall.
If need be, you can of course try to borrow a brush from a friend — the costlier the brush, the more durable it ultimately will be, and it’s possible you may be able to borrow such a pricey friend who perhaps may paint more often.
Don’t settle for just any painter when you can get the attention to detail and professionalism from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting in Denver Metro, CO. Call us today to speak with one of our professional color consultants.
5 Tips For Safely Removing Snow From Your Deck in Denver Metro, CO
In the winter, you can of course expect to see snow depending on where you live, but certainly when you live in a place like Denver Metro, CO.
As an owner of a deck, you will find many things challenging in terms of maintenance of the deck — but when you introduce snow into the equation it becomes that much more of a task to take on.
As you’re not going to want to leave snow on your deck for too long, it’s a good idea to remove it periodically so that it does not cause long term damage — something you definitely want to avoid as it’s the kind of damage that will lead to your having to replace parts of your deck, if not all of it.
With that being the case, let us now look at and consider five tips for safely removing snow from your deck in Denver Metro, CO.
1. Take Care Of Light Snow With A Broom
If you have a small amount of snow on your deck, you’re going to want to take a good solid broom and take it along the deck, sweeping the snow that you find.
It is of course better to take care of your deck when you see this quantity of snow rather than waiting for it to pile on and on because that is when it starts becoming more difficult to remove.
2. Avoid Metal Shovels
When you have a larger quantity of snow, even as little as four or more inches of snow, you’re going to want to get the snow off of the deck using a shovel.
Of course, there are many kinds of shovels that you can get for shoveling your deck to liberate it from the snow, but you should only use plastic shovels — not metal shovels.
Metal shovels have a tendency to scratch and scrape your deck, which is the sort of long term damage you will want to avoid.
3. Consider A Leaf Blower
When you think about what a leaf blower can do, you typically are thinking about… blowing leaves.
Snow is not something that is at the forefront of the mind of the typical person that thinks about snow, but there’s a good reason that it should — it actually does a pretty good job of taking care of snow under a certain number of inches.
If you have more than an inch of snow but under four inches, you can do a pretty good job of removing the snow using a leaf blower.
It could be that it will take a while to get it going but you will surely find it well worth it when you see the deck free and clear of the snow that fell on it.
4. Parallel Shoveling
When you are shoveling your deck, you’re going to hopefully remember in which direction your boards run — and shovel in that direction.
Though you might think that it won’t make any difference if you shovel in one direction or another, it actually can make a substantial difference — your shovel can get stuck if you are shoveling in the wrong direction and the shovel lands between boards.
It can then go on to actually cause some damage to the boards as you try to remove it.
Better to keep to shoveling in the right direction and prevent the damage from happening in the first place.
5. Don’t Pick That Ice!
Lastly, if you find yourself facing ice on your deck you are going to think that perhaps it’s a good idea to hack it off with an ice pick — but you could end up with wood along with your ice.
Instead, better to use a chemical compound set to aid in the melting of the ice — and avoid damaging your deck.
Don’t settle for just any painter when you can get the attention to detail and professionalism from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting in Denver Metro, CO. Call us today to speak with one of our professional color consultants.
5 Uses For Wallpaper In Your Home Other Than Wallpapering in Denver Metro, CO
In the home decorating and renovating world, one thing that comes up quite often is the use of wallpaper — and the various applications that wallpaper has in updating the look of one of your rooms.
However, what people don’t realize is that the opportunities you have with your wallpaper actually extend far beyond the reach of your walls — it can be used for several things in and around your home.
With that being the case, let us look at and consider five uses for wallpaper in your home other than wallpapering in Denver Metro, CO.
1. Lampshades
One creative use for your wallpaper that doesn’t involve wallpapering the wall is creating lampshades for one of your rooms — or maybe multiple rooms!
The really nice thing about this is that you will have lamps that possibly match your wallpaper, assuming that you use the same wallpaper for the lamps you did for the walls.
On the other hand, you may want to consider having lampshades that somehow contrast the wallpaper — and so it could be a better idea to use an entirely different sort of wallpaper for the creation of your lampshades.
2. A New Backsplash For Your Kitchen
When you think about a backsplash in the kitchen, what are you thinking about — do tiles come to mind, or something else?
The nice thing about backsplashes is that they do not have to be made of tile — and a good use for wallpaper that might seem like wallpapering (but in reality is not) is to use it as a backsplash.
There are many wallpapers out there that are just as resistant to getting dirty and easy enough to clean — wipe it clean with a moist cloth or paper towel.
3. Wall Art — But Not In The Form Of Wallpapered Wall
Next, if you happen to have some extra bits of wallpaper and aren’t sure what to do with them, have you considered using them as wall art?
You may be thinking that wallpaper put up on the wall already is wall art — but this is not exactly what we are referring to here.
Instead, here you would cut the wallpaper into precise shapes — specifically, the kind of shapes that would fit into frames that you already have.
You can then fit those pieces of wallpaper into the frames and hang them on the wall as art.
That way, your wallpaper can live on in the form of art.
4. Nicer Looking Stairs
Another thing you can do with your wallpaper is to really upgrade your stairs — why have plain stairs that have the same color over and over again as you go up against them when you can decorate them with your wallpaper.
What’s really interesting about using wallpaper to decorate your stairs is that depending on the kind of wallpaper you use, you add various colors. Depending on the pattern, each step can end up looking just a little bit different than the previous one.
Of course, it is important to be careful when you are doing this as you don’t want people getting dizzy on their climb up the stairs.
5. Improve The Typical Flat Packed Furniture
Consider the kind of furniture you get packed in boxes and how typically dull it looks as is — now think about how much better it will look with the addition of wallpaper.
The nice thing about doing it this way is that you can regularly change up your furniture’s look with just this kind of technique — when you next want to change the look, you can apply a new wallpaper.
Don’t settle for just any painter when you can get the attention to detail and professionalism from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting in Denver Metro, CO. Call us today to speak with one of our professional color consultants.
When you are looking to clean the exterior of your home, you may hit up your friendly video sharing apps and find videos of people making use of power washing tools in order to clean their homes.
Of course, in cleaning your home with a power washer there is a chance that you will encounter issues in the cleaning process, though of course you will have a better time if you know what you are doing beforehand.
With that in mind, let us look at five exterior power washing tips in Denver Metro, CO.
1. Do Not Use On Your Tile Roof
One thing that people use their power washers to do is to really get caked on dirt from exterior surfaces — and as such they might think that it is appropriate to use on their tile roof — but this is not the case.
When you use a power washer on a tile roof, the absolute best case scenario is that somehow, nothing goes wrong — but this is an unlikely case.
What is more likely is that you will damage tiles on your roof, and you could even blow tiles entirely off of your roof — meaning that they would have to be replaced.
2. Pressure Washing Does Not Mix With Ladders
If you need to pressure wash the exterior of your home, do not think you can easily get up on a ladder and get the house clean.
The amount of force that a pressure washer puts out could easily make for a situation in which you could possibly fall off of the ladder and get injured.
If absolutely necessary, you could make use of a scaffolding system in order to reach the higher places you need to reach — true, it is a bit more costly but considerably more stable as long as it is built well.
3. Hold The Wand With Both Hands
Though it may look as though you can easily hold the wand for a pressure washer with just one hand, you should certainly not try doing this — especially the first time you are using it.
As mentioned above, the typical pressure washer puts out quite a lot of force and so you can easily get pushed back if you are not careful when using it.
In particular, you should be mindful that even the lightest pressure that you could have on your washer could easily cause significant damage to your skin.
4. The Right Nozzle For The Job
Not all nozzles do the same thing — particularly when it comes to the nozzles you apply to your pressure washer to get your home exterior clean.
You will find that the different nozzles that come with your pressure washer perform a variety of tasks — the white nozzle, for example, produces a spray at around forty degrees that is appropriate for general exterior washing.
The red one, on the other hand, focuses the spray to be narrow and concentrates the force of the spray as well — it will possibly damage surfaces if used too close to them.
5. Don’t Stick Around In One Place For Too Long
Lastly, remember that even a light amount of pressure held at the appropriate distance is going to cause damage if you stay in the same place for too long.
Of course it is perfectly okay for you to return to the same place if you need to touch up the cleaning work or if there is a little more left to be done, but staying in the same space in any case is not good.
Better to find the right distance from which you can wash the exterior of your home and work at it until you have finished the task at hand — cleaning the exterior of your home.
Don’t settle for just any painter when you can get the attention to detail and professionalism from Imhoff Fine Residential Painting in Denver Metro, CO. Call us today to speak with one of our professional color consultants.
