A couple of years ago we moved into a house with high ceilings, including light fixtures and decorative beams that are all but impossible to reach. It never occurred to us how difficult it is to deal with dusting, light-bulb changing and painting with all this tall architecture. What's the best way to handle this?
Believe me, you're not alone. These atriums and "great rooms" are designed to wow homebuyers, but homeowners are often less thrilled when they realize that routine maintenance and painting in these areas can require scaffolding. Then there are the convective drafts that form in these tall places, but that's another story.
First, let's look at the cleaning, since that's the easiest to handle. Get a telescoping cleaning pole that has an Acme thread on its end. Typical homeowner models range from 5 to 15 feet, approximately, but there are professional models that can reach as high as 30 feet. Also, get a lambswool or synthetic duster and a wall brush to sweep cobwebs out of tall corners. If you have ceiling fans, get a forked dusting tool. These things will clean both sides of a ceiling-fan blade in one pass.
Next, light-bulb changing.
Wagner PaintMate Plus Roller ($30)
Power-fed rollers are a good alternative for painting large areas in hard-to-get-to places. It saves having to go back and forth to a paint tray from a ladder, which means less drippage and spillage. --Jamie Hyneman
Home centers and hardware stores sell pole-mounted bulb changers equipped with a suction cup or spring-steel fingers, but these devices don't work with chandeliers, which will spin as you fasten the changer to the bulb and turn it. The only way to prevent this from happening is to get a second person with another pole to try and hold the chandelier in position while you spin the bulb loose. Failing that, you'll need either a tall stepladder or a hybrid stepladder that's designed to articulate over a staircase and into corners that are hard to reach by conventional means. Little Giant makes a number of ladders that can be configured in this way.
That leaves painting. Sorry, there's no good news here, just hard work. Dust off the high areas before beginning, because you're liable to knock dust loose as you work. The best way to paint tall ceilings and walls without setting up scaffolding is to get some help and set up an extension ladder. Use the ladder to get up to the ceiling-wall corner and cut in the line where the two meet using a brush and a rapid little tool appropriately called a mini roller. Next, paint the ceiling with a long extension pole and a roller (I admit, the job can give you a workout). Finally, paint the walls using the extension ladder to reach the ceiling-wall corner and the extension pole for the high parts of the wall.
Roy Berendsohn has worked for more than 25 years at Popular Mechanics, where he has written on carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing, electrical, woodworking, blacksmithing, welding, lawn care, chainsaw use, and outdoor power equipment. When he’s not working on his own house, he volunteers with Sovereign Grace Church doing home repair for families in rural, suburban and urban locations throughout central and southern New Jersey.
