Painting a Rental Unit (1-bedroom) - Heavy Smoker left after 10 years - should I Paint the Ceiling too?

I am a 37 year experienced painter and any heavy damage from smoking needs to be washed down with a tsp solution(tri sodium phosphate) at least twice and rinsed inbetween coats or the nicotine will literally seep out in streaks when you paint and yellow as soon as it dries...tsp is avaialble at Home depot,lowes etc..for 3.00 a box you mix with water..You will also need to prime all areas after washing with an OIL BASED/SOLVENT BASED primer to seal any remnants left behind..Do not use water based kilz zinsser etcetera..it will do no good for stains like this...Use the ORIGINAL KILZ or the zinsser stain block that is oil based/solvent cut..or every coat of paint you put on will yellow through , I do not care about how good of a quality latex finish you use or what sheen..it will bleed through...unless a solvent based primer is used..solvent based primers are compatable with latex finishes..just do not recoat too soon...some say 1 hour drying time to recoat but this depneds on the situation..cold.humid etc..even though it feels completely dry to the touch..it may not have cured long enough to do it's job..I prefer to plan the priming toward the end of the day and let it set overnight...I would rather wait a few hours extra..than to paint..then have to paint again and again..the extra hours used on drying time..will save time and material in the long run..The ceiling cost wise shouldn't run you that much after priming...ceilings are usually painted with a flat sheened latex..and the walls a satin,eggshell,semi gloss,matte etc...which is slightly higher than ceiling paint..You can get 5 gallons of a flat ceiling paint for around 45.00 per 5..% gallons will do a whole 1 bedroom apartment sufficiently.........Now believe it or not..wal mart has a label of paint called "color place"..and it is made exclusively for them by Sherwin Willimas paint company..I like to use high end paints personally..but when a customer asks for a budget paint..I recomend this..a god price and a good product...HOWEVER..the only product color place puts out I do not like is the actually paint that is labeled..CEILING PAINT.. it doesn't seem to cover as well..so I just simply get the color place label that is strictly white flat paint..do not use the one specified for ceilings...The ceiling paint will only increase your cost by about 5%..the primer you need to do will cost more than worrying about the ceiling..Kilz(ORIGINAL FORMULA) WILL COST ABOUT 11.00 A GALLON AT HOME DEPOT....Your whole ceiling painting after priming will only cost about 50.00 for the entire apartment..believe me..once you paint the walls and not the ceiling..it will show so yellow...you will want to paint anyway then..which you will then have to do against already finished walls...You should paint them

My daughter just bought a house where the former owners were heavy smokers. It was a bank repo, and my daughter says that the reason they lost the house was because they were obviously just sitting home smoking all the time.

I think you need to paint the ceiling, as well as the walls. I don't know how much this will add to the cost of the painting -- I'd guess 25%. I've had rental property for over 35 years and I would not consider letting someone else paint my units. I've hired this done in the past and the job was never as good as I would do it. So now, I just do it myself.

I love to paint!

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In my opinion, and not being the one who has to pay for it, i think after 10 years the ceiling should be repainted regardless of who lived there. But, since it was a heavy smoker, there is no doubt that the ceiling will be yellowed so i believe you should paint it as well. Of course its more expensive to paint more, and you're probably looking in the range of about 25% more for paint if your doing it in house, and probably closer to 10% more if contracting it, because ceilings tend to be quite easy to paint.

a painted ceiling would make a better apartment. how much paint? 1 gal of paint covers 25-30 square meters. compute the areas to be painted and then divide the ceiling area by the total painted area, times 100 to get the percentage. (Ceiling area / (wall+Ceiling) x 100 = %

by computing the percentage seems irrelevant. so do this instead.

compute the No. of gal of paint to be used if you paint the entire walls and ceiling and compare it against the No. of gal to be used is painting the walls only. (Wall+ceiling area)/ 30sqm x 15%wastage= No. of gal of paint to be used.

Wall area/ 30sqm x 15% wastage= No. of gal of paint for walls only. by this you'll have a concrete idea of how much paint you'll be using for your painting job.

* by the way you'll always have excess paints from your wall painting job so why not add a bit more so that you could paint your ceiling. ;-)

paint the ceiling. a 1 bedroom apartment should take a little less than 5 gal. a paint supply store sells 5 gal buckets of paint, its cheaper. and they are a lot more helpful.

boil some water in the apt. You will have nice smokey droplets of water all over. You need to shut off the internet and use the money to paint the ceiling.

After 10 years, paint the ceiling. Cost doesn't matter, it's what you've gotta do to attract good tenants. Paint the ceiling, please.

yes otherwise that is all you see when your done painting the walls

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