Asked by reallynoclue on Tue 31 Mar 2009 - 4:32 am UTC:

We'd like to help friends refinish several surfaces around their home, with
the goal of having the paint jobs last nicely...for about a year. It's a
future tear-down, so nothing fancy. If it can be done quickly by them, at
minimal cost, that's ideal. 

There is no need to provide all the step-by-step application details --
while we'd love that, we may be able to figure that part out on our own and
we'd most of all love to have you spend time coming up with your most
expert summary recommendations.  

Yes, we do recognize that there are absolutely no sure outcomes in this
kind of endeavor! If you want to take a guess as to the probability of
one-year success, that'd be great. 

The surfaces are: 

1. Old, sometimes moist, 50-year-old concrete floor and walls in a
dilapidated basement. Some of that wall concrete is actually crumbling to
the touch. The floor is in pretty good shape. It has the remnants of old
paint -- very thin, worn through entirely in many secftions. What
sealant/primer would you recommend throwing over these surfaces -- or will
it just come right off in a matter of weeks? If more prep work is needed to
last a year or so, what's the minimum needed to make anything stick for 6
months to a year? 

2. Wood beams in said basement with some kind of powdery white exudate on
some of them. They don't want to seal in anything that needs to breathe, or
paint over anything that needs to be treated. 

3. This is an unusual one: Bathroom walls that are some kind of particle
board paneling with a glossy, plasticized surface. (Think:  bathrooms in
cheap restaurants, or bathrooms in working class homes in the 1950's).
Imagine a shiny wood-grain plastic-topped veneer on a tacky endtable, and
you are probably imaginging something similar except that it's probably
cardboard just underneath these panels' thin plastic surface. We already
tried krylon plastic spray paint -- it rubbed right off. The question now
is whether it can be LIGHTLY scuffed up -- it wouldn't make sense to spend
days grinding it down to the particle board -- and then painted with oil or
latex based paint or anything else. 
	If that is unlikely to work, then can it be wallpapered? If so, is there
an el-cheapo, far-from-perfect way to get wallpaper done by somebody else,
e.g., home depot in-home services or somesuch? It seems too challenging to
DIY. 

4. The concrete spanning the bottom edge of the exterior siding, down to
the soil. It's about 1.5 feet of exposed, cracking concrete. They are
willing to patch it, but don't know what kind of paint to then finish it
off with. 

5. A metal bulkhead basement door - it's clearly been repainted incorrectly
with rustoleum-style paint.. The uppermost layer of paint is peeling off
promiscuously, in big sheaths, inside and out. It's a mess. What's the
simplest way to reprep that surface to accept a new topcoat? Do they need
to use paint remover, or can they simply sand the peeling areas til they're
flush, scuff up the entire area, and then paint over it with rustoleum? 

6. Exterior paint that was used inside, on a porch. We can't tell whether
it's oil-based. If it's oil-based, what do we need to use over it? Is there
a way to go from oil-based to latex-based paint without it peeling up? 

7. Excessively dark-stained, urethane-top-coated antique window trim. Is
there any painting strategy that might hold up for a few years, but be
quite easy to remove without removing the underlying urethane/stain ...when
the trim is eventually salvaged? They'd like to paint these surfaces but
not create a total mess for somebody who later wants to revert to the
underlying wood finish. I'd suggested lightly sanding (not removing) the
urethane, followed by a latex paint, and then later remove the latex paint
with goof-off or a similar latex solvent (leaving the underlying urethane
unaffected). Am I off-base there?  

Thanks so much!