Got to decorate hall & stairs, includes 18 doors!! advice please

bobsa1

Well the decorater who was going to do our hall and staircase has hurt his back. The other quotes I've had for the work are at least £400 more and so we've decided to do it ourselves. :beer:

I'm looking for tips which are either time saving or will give a really good finish.

I have decided to wallpaper (decorater was painting walls) as our walls aren't the best and I think wallpaper will give a better effect (plus got some sanderson paper for 25p a roll!!) :j

We need to paint loads of skirtings, doors etc and and also ceilings.Please can someone tell me the order to this in;

I thought ceilings, woodwork, then wallpaper, but if anyone has other ideas please let me know.

Also has anyone any idea how long this will take, also what preparation do I need to do?

Sorry for all the questions, it's just I want it to look nice, we are hoping to sell this year and currently hall lets the house down. We have a new neutral carpet on order so I really do want it to look different.

totalguitar

Thats the correct order, ceiling, whitework then wallpaper or emulsion the walls last. Preperation is everything in decorating, and the worst bit. Spend time sanding properly and leave plenty of time for gloss to dry, move to another room and decorate something else.

I can guarantee you will do a better job than any decorator. I recently had my house valued for sale and the EA said she knew my house hadn't been professionaly decorated, it was too good a job ! (sorry any decorators out there )

Good luck

bobsa1

How many coats of gloss should I use, should I use undercoat and can anyone recommend a brand?

sloth

bobsa1 wrote:

How many coats of gloss should I use, should I use undercoat and can anyone recommend a brand?

assuming it is already painted and you have sanded back, i would just use 1 coat of undercoat and one of topcoat (satin or gloss). that is all i have used on my woodwork and it looks good

i use dulux trade undercoat and satin which i would recommend, particularly if using as above as it has better coverage and is pretty hard wearing. is not the cheapest but is worth it!!

Becles

I agree with the comment above about gloss/undercoat - I always do that!

Best tip is to have loads of time and patience. It will take a while, but don't cut corners or try and whizz through it. From experience, slow and steady gives a much better job.

I've found generally that brand name paints are better than own label ones. They tend to be thicker and give better coverage. I had some awful cheap emulsion once (can't remember which brand). It was so runny that when I was painting the ceiling, the paint was running off the brush, down my arm and dripping off my elbow :eek:

busymumof3

Just wanted to add a note about time it would take to do the work. I have recently had our hall stairs and landing redecorated by a painter and decorator. It took him 3 full 8 hr days to do. Walls and woodwork in pretty good condition and we have painted walls as opposed to wallpaper. There are 14 doors only two of which were painted (small pane glass) as we are replacing the rest. Whilst the skirtings and facings were white and only needed washing, rubbing down, undercoat and top coat, our window sills are really dark brown gloss and needed 3 undercoats and 2 topcoats. What a difference though!

Was charged a reasonable £15 per hour (£360) and he has done a super job. He did all our last house too so we knew his work was good.

Good luck with your decorating I'm sure it will be more than worth the effort.

virgin_moneysaver

ditto the rest really - preparation is key & I'm a Dulux fan & this is being used on our 3rd house - but if you are looking for a range of variations of white emulsion then Crown do a good choice, just used their Milk White & it's a really subtle white, not in your face Brilliant White - good luck! the hall, landing & stairs has got to be the most daunting area to deal with!

Little_John

We had 2 rooms decorated last month well a decorator freind of mine did 1 room and taught me how to do it.

He sugested buying Johnstones/Leyland paint and it was fine 2 coats of emulsion did the job no problem I gave it a 3rd coat as it was so cheap I had bought too much I just used the rest of the tin.

Used 1 coat of undercoat on the wood/radiators and then a top coat of gloss and it looks brilliant even thoug I did it myself. The hard bit is the preperation sanding everything to remove the grime and get a smooth surface for the paint but it is worth it in the end.

Painting technique is the key, keep the edges wet, do small areas. get your coat on and then lightly run the brush over it before moving on in the same direction for each area to finish it off without brush marks. I thought it was rubbins but it worked.
The doors he did, he put the paint on horizontally then lightly brushed vertically to blend the areas in to each other and remove the brush strokes.
the skirting he started in the corner painted about 6 inches from the corner out then the rest he would paint in to the bit he had done agian to remove brush strokes and keeping the edge wet.

I just thought it was slap the paint on, its harder than it looks I would get someone to do it for me in the future 1 room took me 4 days, emulsion on the walls and the wood. he did the other room in 2 evenings and an extra hour for the top gloss coat. he got 2 coats of emulsion on the 1st night the 3rd the 2nd when he did the undercoat and the extra hour the next night was the gloss. really quick as for cost I dont know he wouldnt take payment

magentadreamer

I loathe glossing but found using a gloss roller on my skirting boards made the job alot quicker. My skirting boards are about 8 inches with fancy coving bits at the top - the finish looks just as good as if I'd done it with a brush. My last decorating job is going to be my hall as well - acres of woodwork and doors unfortunately.