prompted by this post in !mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world I decided to ask you about my predicament.

I live in the attic of a rundown house that’s close to 200 years old. looked like shit when I moved in, I’ve made it livable, I add and fix things here and there when I can, by youtubing stuff and using the tools I have.

recently, a cheap electric kettle caught fire and burned for several minutes, incinerating nearby items and the (plastic) base it was on. the result was a black smoke so dark you couldn’t see light from the windows, vantablack type of deal. once I dowsed out the flames (and surely inhaled that crap in major unhealthy doses) it took ages to air the place out.

in the aftermath, every surface was covered with greasy, black residue that you can’t just wipe off/vacuum.

I’ve thrown away most things that were covered with it, cleaned others over the past months. only upside of this mess is, it sticks to the surfaces so it doesn’t fall down and/or circulate in the air.

now I’d like to paint the walls. tried cleaning them with anti-grease and sponges and paper towels and stuff; that worked on kitchen cabinets, but it’s a no-go here, just makes a mess and dissolves the stuff underneath (lime-based paint with god knows how many layers).

I figured, if I paint the walls and the exposed wood beam with the right type of paint, it’ll just cover/trap the whole mess and I’d be done with it. then I’d like to clean/paint the ceiling paneling somehow.

can’t afford to move into healthier dwellings and the owner has zero fucks to give about the situation and is fine with whatever I come up with, including leaving it as is; even with the fire damage, the place is in way better shape now than when I moved in.

doable? tips? ideas?

edit: images

edit2: I wish lemmy’s UI would state the what the image limits are, it gets tiresome guessing how large is “too large”.

  • Breezy@lemmy.world
    2·
    17 hours ago

    Pictures? With the house being so old is it drywall or plaster. Also ask when the last time the house was remodeled. Just because it’s 200 years old the walls most likely are not.

    With enough wiping with a degreaser changing rags then washing the dirty rags and so on will remove the soot, it should. I dont know anything about lime paint but if its smearing black shit staining the walls that shouldn’t be an issue. Its tedious. You can also get a bottle of comical grade degreaser that will cut through it much quicker, just dont bleach or use any ammonia type products on the same rags because itll cause a reaction.

    Typically the goal before painting is to remove all the soot possible, if you were to paint over it the paint wont stick to the walls correctly. Itll also still have that stoot smell.