Painting the Farm and City Home 



Brushing or spraying a preservative 

 on wood adds only about 1 to 3 years 

 to its serviceable life. Applied in this 

 way, the preservative does not pene- 

 trate the wood deeply enough to form 

 an effective barrier to wood-destroying 

 organisms, termites, or borers, so that 

 only a limited degree of protection can 

 be expected. 



For many years the Forest Products 

 Laboratory has conducted tests on pre- 

 servative treatments and maintained 

 service records on treated and un- 

 treated fence posts, poles, railroad ties, 

 and other forms of timber subject to 

 decay and insect attack, often in co- 

 operation with farmers, railroads, in- 

 dustrial concerns, experiment stations, 

 and the national forests. 



Service records have shown the good 

 natural durability of the heartwood of 

 such species as cedars, baldcypress, 

 chestnut, black locust, Osage-orange, 



and the redwood, and the nondurable 

 properties of the sapwood of all species, 

 and the heartwood of many, unless 

 protected by a preservative treatment. 

 They have also shown differences in 

 the value of various preservatives and 

 methods of treatment, which provide 

 the basis for treating specifications on 

 which the wood-preservation industry 

 is largely based. 



THOMAS R. TRUAX is a graduate of 

 Iowa State College. From 1913 to 

 1918 he was a member of the staff of 

 the forestry department in that insti- 

 tution. Since 1918 he has been en- 

 gaged in research on forest products 

 at the Forest Products Laboratory and 

 now is chief of the Division of Wood 

 Preservation, which conducts investi- 

 gations in the preservation of wood, 

 fireproofing, painting, glues, gluing, 

 and veneer cutting. 



PAINTING THE FARM AND CITY HOME 



FREDERICK L. BROWNE 



Painting is a good way to make wood 

 houses attractive and to freshen or 

 change their appearance. Paint can 

 give wood an endless variety of colors. 



The colors are important elements in 

 design. White, or a light color, makes 

 a small house look larger. A dark color 

 makes a large house look smaller. Light 

 tints emphasize attractive parts, and 

 dark shades suppress unattractive parts 

 of a building. Pleasantly contrasting 

 colors can restore harmonious balance 

 among unshapely parts of a building. 



The natural color of wood after it 

 has been exposed to the weather for a 

 few months is dark gray, although at 

 high altitudes it is often brown. If the 

 gray color is satisfactory, wood build- 

 ings can remain unpainted and the cost 

 of paint maintenance thereby be saved. 

 Buildings unprotected by paint are by 

 no means unusual; in fact, the two 

 oldest frame buildings in the United 

 States, one in Dedham, Mass., and the 



802062 49 41 



other in St. Augustine, Fla., have never 

 been painted. Surviving houses of the 

 Amana Society in Iowa still have un- 

 painted wood siding more than three- 

 quarters of a century old. 



The decorative program for a wood 

 building should be chosen when the 

 building is first planned. Woodwork to 

 be kept painted should consist of 

 smoothly surfaced boards or plywood. 

 Smooth wood can be painted with a 

 third of the amount of paint and with 

 far less effort than is required for wood 

 with the rough surface left by sawing 

 or splitting. The glossy paints used for 

 house painting need smooth surfaces if 

 the paint is to show to best advantage. 

 On the other hand, unpainted wood- 

 work exposed to the weather soon 

 becomes rough ; economy therefore dic- 

 tates the initial choice of unsurfaced 

 woodwork for such use. 



Unpainted woodwork needs to be 

 thicker in dimension and more firmly 



