- 2 weeks ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:04On Ask This Old House, our experts travel across the country to answer questions about your house.
00:18Today, Morrow helps a homeowner design and paint an accent wall.
00:23I love it. It looks amazing.
00:25Then, do plants clean the air and they repel mosquitoes?
00:28Jen discusses some of these common plant myths.
00:32Then, when homeowners ask for an affordable patio option, Mark suggests installing a Peastone patio.
00:39Feels pretty rock solid. Love it.
00:42All that on Ask This Old House.
00:55All right. Hi, Morrow.
00:58Okay. Hello.
00:58Thanks so much for coming today.
01:00Oh, my pleasure.
01:01This is my dog, Waffles. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. We actually just moved into this house.
01:08Wow.
01:08But I'm having a baby and I'm due next month.
01:12All right.
01:13And it's just a little too pink. We're looking for something a bit more neutral.
01:18Got it. So, any color that you're thinking about for this room?
01:22I was thinking of doing like a greenish color.
01:26Okay. I like that. So, every time when I come in to a painting project, I like to understand the
01:31purpose of the room.
01:32Right.
01:33All right. And if this is going to be a nursery, maybe you want to bring some color that brings
01:39you some tranquility when you're going to stay here with your baby.
01:43And the color helps a lot. So, some colors that makes you feel comfortable in the room. At the same
01:49time, baby and mom will be very happy in here.
01:52Yeah. That's honestly good to know. And I was thinking too that since the room's empty, we could do some
01:57sort of accent on the wall as well.
01:59All right. I like that. But let's paint this whole room first and then we'll talk about the accent color.
02:06Okay. Sounds good.
02:07All right. We're going to paint this room just the way we would paint any room. We start with the
02:12prop, take down the curtain rods, remove cover plates, and protect the floors, base boards, and the outlets.
02:21Then, we'll cut the edges and roll the walls.
02:25There we go.
02:27Now, you go all the way up and all the way up and down. Yeah. All the way down to
02:33the bottom.
02:34Oh, my gosh. I painted on the windowsill and on the ceiling already.
02:39All right. I'm going to get you a wet rag. You're right back. All right? Wet rag.
02:44Okay.
02:45Okay.
02:45Don't wait for the paint to dry, okay? Just clean it right away.
02:54Okay.
02:56Perfect.
02:57You always go back, spread the paint a little more.
03:04You're so good at cutting those lines.
03:07Well, you will be great if you practice like this.
03:12Yeah.
03:13Maura, why are we not priming?
03:17Well, every time when you paint over a surface that has been painted already, you do not need primer.
03:23Oh, really?
03:24Yes.
03:25If you go down like a bare plaster, fresh plaster, then you do need to put a coat of primer
03:30on it.
03:35See, when you're cutting around, you know, thermostat or any stuff like this, it's very, very tight and very difficult
03:44to get your brush net.
03:45Right.
03:45Just the very tip and you're going to make the brush a dance a little bit.
03:51Well, now the first coat is dry and we can repeat the same as we did before.
04:04Well, Emily, the walls are completely dry and it's ready for the accent wall.
04:10Perfect.
04:10Yeah, I like this wall for an accent wall because I think that it just has some nice dimension to
04:16it.
04:17I like that, too, because you see that slanted wall dying right into the wall here.
04:22So if we do an accent here, it's going to look really good and this will make part of that.
04:27What do you have in mind?
04:29I was thinking of doing two arches.
04:31Arches?
04:31Yeah.
04:32Like that.
04:33Okay, I like that.
04:34So how wide do you want the arches to be?
04:37I was thinking maybe like this wide.
04:41Okay.
04:42What about what?
04:43We got 20, 25.
04:45We got 26.
04:47Yeah, I think 26 looks good.
04:50Okay.
04:50Just put a mark right there.
04:54All right.
04:55Very good.
04:55Now, how tall do you want this?
04:58Yeah.
04:59So how tall do you think that we should do it so that it doesn't hit the top part?
05:03I'll say we got 24 inches wide, 38 inches or maybe 40 inches.
05:11Okay.
05:12You want to put a mark right in there?
05:14Yeah.
05:15We're going to put it right here at the mark.
05:18Let's put that on level.
05:21Now, we're going to do this.
05:25We're going to draw a line right there.
05:32Okay.
05:33Okay.
05:33We're going to do it the same way on that side.
05:35You want to do that?
05:36Sure.
05:40All the way down.
05:44We're going to get the pencil here with the string and then we're going to put this right in the
05:50center here,
05:51which is half of the 26.
05:54We're going to change the lines.
05:56We're going to make the arch.
05:57Oh, cool.
06:07What do you think?
06:08Looks really good.
06:10All right.
06:10How big do we want to do the other one?
06:13I think we're the top of the arch.
06:20All right.
06:20Cool.
06:26Go.
06:26Go up.
06:27Don't loosen up.
06:28Keep straight.
06:28Yeah.
06:30Keep going.
06:31I'm stuck.
06:33Keep going.
06:34Just, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:36Keep going down here.
06:39Perfect.
06:40Okay.
06:41Now we can tape.
06:42And this is how we're going to do.
06:43We're going to start from the straight point here.
06:47We're going to put the tape on the outside of the line, okay?
06:51Press it down.
06:54So this is a very thin, low-tech tape.
06:59Okay.
07:00Won't pull the paint or anything down the bottom.
07:05Got it.
07:07To get to the curve of the arch, we can rip small sections of tape at a time and curve
07:13it around the reference line.
07:17This is the hardest part of this whole process.
07:21Okay.
07:22I actually find this to be not as hard because I don't have to be crouching over.
07:29Guess what time it is?
07:31It's time to paint.
07:32Let's do it.
07:33All right.
07:34You do the green.
07:35Okay.
07:35And I will do the beige.
07:37Okay.
07:38Just like that.
07:39Okay.
07:40All right.
07:41Roller will do all the work for you.
07:44Okay.
07:46All right.
07:46If you run out of paint, get more paint.
07:58I'm definitely going to need a couple coats on this one.
08:01You will.
08:02Yes.
08:12Second coat is done.
08:13Okay.
08:14Now, let's remove the tape while the paint is still wet.
08:24There's one more thing to do.
08:26You see that gap?
08:28Yes.
08:28You're just going to have to fill that in with paint.
08:30But this time, we're not going to use paint or tape.
08:33Okay.
08:34It's going to be freehand.
08:35You can use the tape for this final section, but it's important that the paint for the artist
08:41is completely dry.
08:42I use a paint brush all times, so I am comfortable freehanding.
08:53What do you think?
08:54I love it.
08:55It looks amazing.
08:57It's so much calmer in here, and I think it's going to be perfect.
09:00Absolutely.
09:01You've got three great colors there that the combination of the three together looks nice,
09:07peaceful.
09:08This is all the meaning for this whole room, right?
09:11Yeah.
09:11All right.
09:12Enjoy the room.
09:13Good luck with everything.
09:14Thank you so much.
09:16Any more projects?
09:16Let me know.
09:17Okay.
09:17Perfect.
09:18Sounds good.
09:19Wafi, do you like the room?
09:28Hey, Jen.
09:29Hey, Kevin.
09:29Are we talking house plants here?
09:31Nope.
09:32We are talking house plant myths.
09:34Oh, even better.
09:35I'm leaning in.
09:36All right.
09:37What are some of the house plant myths?
09:38Well, this is a pothos plant, first of all.
09:41It's a common house plant, and we're talking about air purification within the house.
09:45Oh, my God.
09:46I've heard this so many times.
09:46I know.
09:47There's many studies out there, but based off a study in 1989 from NASA, it removes carbon
09:53dioxide and VOCs from the air.
09:55So the idea is, if I've got a few plants, that the air in my house is much more pure
09:59than everything else.
10:00Absolutely.
10:01True or not true?
10:02It is true if your entire room is filled with plants.
10:05Right.
10:05You know?
10:05Like, if you just have one or two plants, you can't depend on that for the absolute air
10:09quality.
10:10Yeah.
10:10But it is a great idea.
10:12I'm still going to have plants in my house.
10:14Okay.
10:14That's good for your mental health.
10:15It makes you calm.
10:16And so it's a myth, but it is effective in large quantities.
10:20But you've got to have really large quantities.
10:22Yeah.
10:23Like your whole...
10:23Okay.
10:24All right.
10:24I get it.
10:25That's a good balance.
10:25All right.
10:26So myth number two.
10:27Do you know what this is?
10:28A houseplant.
10:30All right.
10:30This is citronella.
10:31Oh, okay.
10:32Yeah.
10:33So citronella, I think, is what keeps mosquitoes away.
10:35Yep.
10:35So a common myth is, if I plant citronella around my patio, the mosquitoes will not come.
10:41But in fact, they will come because it's just not effective with a couple plants.
10:45I think the most effective form is getting a citronella candle, right?
10:50Right.
10:52And so...
10:52Oh, yeah.
10:52So that, I mean, just, that is so much more, just the scent is so much more concentrated.
10:57Yes.
10:57So they've taken the oils and they made it into a candle.
10:59And when you light this, you know, when you put that flame on and then it just makes,
11:03it cooks the oil and then it emanates in the air between that and the smoke, you know,
11:06I find that very effective.
11:08So that's interesting.
11:09It is actually mosquito repellent, but only effective when it's this concentrated.
11:13And concentrate.
11:13Okay.
11:13You know, some people like to put scented geranium with lavender and citronella in the garden,
11:18and those do deter insects, but mass quantities, again.
11:21I'm calling it two myths busted.
11:24All right.
11:25What's this myth about?
11:26This myth is about roots and root pruning.
11:29Oh.
11:29People are afraid to prune roots.
11:31They think they're going to hurt the plant.
11:32Yeah, I would never cut a root.
11:34What?
11:34I just assume that I'm killing it slowly.
11:36Well, especially in containers, right?
11:38Yeah.
11:38So this, you're going to cut them.
11:40When I'm going to transfer it to a new pot, it's important to prune the roots.
11:45It'll help stimulate the plant.
11:46And then I'm going to take this pot off.
11:49Oh, yeah.
11:50Yeah.
11:50So these roots are going to continue growing.
11:53And see how this goes in a circular fashion?
11:55Mm-hmm.
11:55What you want to do is just pull them out, fan them all out.
11:59Don't be afraid.
12:00You're not going to hurt the plant.
12:02You might mess up the table.
12:03Tease the roots, as you guys say, right?
12:05Tease the roots.
12:06And so when I go to replant this in this pot with new soil, it's going to be able to
12:10reach out.
12:10But could you trim those?
12:12Like when you pull that out of the little plastic container, could you trim those without harming
12:15the plant?
12:15Absolutely.
12:16Does it stir regrowth?
12:18It stimulates growth.
12:19So it stimulates, right.
12:20Mm-hmm.
12:20So I cut that there.
12:22Just the long ones that have been reaching out because they had in these pots, they reach
12:28out through the holes because they're looking for somewhere else to go.
12:30And that's when you know you need to repot it.
12:32So reach out and then put this in the pot at the appropriate level, backfill with soil.
12:37Trim the roots.
12:38Trim the roots.
12:39Don't be afraid.
12:40All right.
12:40Well, thank you for clearing up the myths.
12:42Yeah, no problem.
12:43And I'm going to tease the plant.
12:45You're so small.
12:46You're so small.
12:47You're so bad.
12:48But he's bigger than you.
13:03Michelle.
13:04Hi, Mark.
13:05How are you?
13:05Good, how are you?
13:06Hi, Greg.
13:06Good to see you again.
13:07How are you?
13:07All right.
13:08My pleasure.
13:08So we have a new build.
13:10We've been in here a few years now, and we've done a bit of work.
13:14When we first moved in, there was a big slope here.
13:16And this used to be all woods, and we recently just had it leveled out just for an area for
13:21our kids to play in.
13:22All right.
13:23And then we've added in the swing set, which is great, but we still don't have an area for
13:28us to be able to sit and watch the kids.
13:30We have the deck, which is nice, but it's kind of small and it's up high, so we'd like
13:33to have an area to sit and watch the kids play.
13:37Okay.
13:37Really like a budget-friendly option.
13:39Okay.
13:39Because of how much that just costs us.
13:41Sure.
13:41A couple things for me to consider, but I'm going to go grab my tape.
13:45I'll meet you guys back here, and we can do some layout.
13:48Sounds good.
13:50All right.
13:54All right.
13:55Well, I think I have this figured out.
13:57So from the first step over here all the way to the end of the deck, we have about 18
14:01feet.
14:02I like to hold the patios back off of edges.
14:05I'd like to propose a 16-foot by 14-foot P-Stone patio.
14:09The P-Stone will look good, plus it's affordable.
14:12You still have a slight slope in your yard, so what we'll need to add is a short retaining
14:16wall along the front edge to hold the P-Stone level.
14:19And then what I think I'm going to do to get you from this concrete is a couple stepping
14:23stones, and I'm going to do the same thing to get you to your shed.
14:27But if you guys come this way, you can see how quickly we dropped.
14:31Okay, so that's why I want to build that wall here, but I have some material that I think
14:35is really going to do us well, so why don't we take a look at it?
14:38All right.
14:38All right.
14:42All right, so these are the materials I was talking about.
14:45First, we have the P-Stone.
14:47How do you like that, Greg?
14:48I like that a lot.
14:49It's got nice rounded edges.
14:50It's also in budget, which is a good thing.
14:53It stays down fairly well, but we do have a couple things that are going to help with
14:57that.
14:57So first, I have landscape fabric.
15:01This is going to help us with separation.
15:03We don't want the P-Stone to run into the dirt, so that's very important.
15:07What we have here is the binding agent.
15:09This is going to help us keep the P-Stone together.
15:12You have little kids that you know they love to pick things up and throw everything around,
15:16so this is going to help us with that.
15:18This is the landscape block.
15:20Again, that's going to help us with that off-level over there.
15:23So we're going to put a little retaining wall in.
15:25That's going to level off the patio.
15:27Let's get going.
15:32Tough digging, Greg.
15:33It absolutely is.
15:34You see these rocks?
15:35A lot of rocks here.
15:41How deep are we digging?
15:43We're going to go four or five inches deep.
15:45The beauty of a P-Stone patio is that we don't have to go a full eight inches as we
15:51normally
15:51would with hardscape.
16:05For the wall, we'll install it the same way we would normally approach a wall.
16:10We will dig 12 inches down and compact it.
16:22And then a layer of gravel for drainage.
16:32Great.
16:38We will compact that as well.
16:44And then we can lay the blocks.
16:46All right.
16:47Good muscles.
16:48We got it.
16:50And all we're doing is lining it up with the last one.
16:56So you see how important putting the gravel down is?
16:59Mm-hmm.
17:00When it's level, we don't have to spend too much time with the block.
17:06Do the same thing.
17:07Walk it in.
17:16So I can handle this one.
17:18Okay.
17:19And you can see this corner has a face on the end and a face facing out.
17:25We prepped the gravel perfectly.
17:27So we're looking pretty good.
17:34This is just a masonry adhesive.
17:37So now what we're going to do is lay down the caps.
17:40All right.
17:41Perfect.
17:42I don't like to do that upper lip with glue because it oozes out.
17:46Mm-hmm.
17:49This is what they call a bullet level.
17:53It's made for this type of job right here.
17:56You can see that's pretty perfect.
17:59Yep.
18:00I want to go this way as well, which is great.
18:03So you can see I pitched the cap just a little bit this way.
18:07Mm-hmm.
18:07That's for water runoff.
18:08Okay.
18:10I'm going to go into the backside of that and just pick it up, bouncing the whole way.
18:17All right.
18:18So all we're going to do is rinse and repeat all the way down the line.
18:21Sounds good.
18:23Roll that into place.
18:25All right.
18:28All right, Greg.
18:29So now that the wall is in, first thing we're going to do is compact this soil.
18:33Okay.
18:33So this whole area has to be wet because we're going to really kick up the dust.
18:38Okay.
18:38So if you stay ahead of me with the water, we'll minimize that.
18:51So now time for landscape fabric.
18:53I want to start at this end so I can overlap as I go towards the porch.
18:59Okay.
18:59If I have water runoff, I don't want it to sneak under the fabric paper.
19:05All right, Greg.
19:06So the next step is the drainage pipe.
19:08If you noticed, this is four-inch perforated pipe.
19:12So you can see the perforation right there.
19:14It's wrapped in fabric and I'm just going to put it up against the wall from start to finish.
19:20I am a little long right here, so I'm just going to trim it.
19:25And now I'm going to poke it out of this corner just in case we have water overflow.
19:31Gravity will help me out and take the water away.
19:33Okay.
19:36The final step in our prep work is going to be this aluminum edging.
19:39It's actually going to hold back the dirt from the P-stone, which is very important.
19:45And now the P-stone.
19:50All right, Greg, you're going to want to spread that out.
19:52For the first layer, we're going to go a couple inches.
20:20Okay.
20:21So this is the top coat.
20:25You guys are going to continue to rake out, but I'm going to come behind you guys with six-foot
20:30level.
20:30That's going to act as a screed.
20:35Okay, Michelle, we're going to apply the binding agent to the P-stone.
20:43All right, Greg, these are your stepping stones.
20:46This is the configuration that I thought might work best.
20:49What do you think?
20:50You know, I love it.
20:50It leads to the backyard, leads to the patio, and then leads right to the shed.
20:54Exactly.
20:54So what we're going to do is trace around the stones, move them out of the way,
21:00and then create a base by digging twice the thickness of the stone.
21:05I like this depth.
21:07Adding and compacting crushed stone, which will help with drainage.
21:12And then adding a layer of wet stone dust, which will help lock the stepping stones into place.
21:17And that's it.
21:18Just drop it.
21:21Okay.
21:22And now we want to wiggle.
21:27Tap, tap.
21:36Okay.
21:42And I'm going to take some of this stone dust, the wet stuff, and really pack it in on the
21:46edges.
21:47Okay.
21:47It feels pretty rock solid.
21:49Love it.
21:50So here we are.
21:51Finished product.
21:52Patio.
21:53Wall.
21:54We backfilled a little bit.
21:56So the only couple things I'm going to ask of you guys is just to stay off that for 72
22:00hours.
22:00Let that binding coat really solidify.
22:04We've created a little bit of a ledge for you with the retaining wall.
22:07So an option may be to do a little bush planting out front.
22:12Other than that, you should be good to go.
22:14All right.
22:15Now we can watch our kids run around.
22:16Maybe sometimes we'll sit.
22:18We'll see.
22:18I love it.
22:19I love it.
22:20Take care, Michelle.
22:21All right.
22:22Thank you, Greg.
22:22Take care.
22:22Okay.
22:23Take care.
22:42Next time on Ask This Old House, Nathan helps a homeowner measure for new shades and assists in the install.
22:50That's really nice.
22:51Then Richard gives a quick anatomy lesson on toilet tanks.
22:56And how do you add curb appeal to a steep front yard?
23:00Jen jumps in with a design plan.
23:03This is called Panicum Virgatum.
23:04They're going to help stabilize the slope.
23:07All that on Ask This Old House.
23:27You're $14.
23:30You're $94.
23:37You're $5.
23:42You sang this old storage.
Comments