Hall. stairs and landing painting

horseykitty

To cut a long story short: we had our loft converted 4 years ago and also had various walls replastered. Most of the woodwork was stained dark oak (nice) at the time and we just had half term to redecorate and move back in. Walls had cream emulsion slapped on them and a 'decorator' friend recommended painting the woodwork with white eggshell. Needless to say it is a slapdash mess - we didn't sand down the walls before painting and the eggshell just went on top of the dark stain and every tiny knock has it chipping off.
I've had enough but I don't know where to start with it. We live in a Victorian terrace and the hall has some nice decorative features. I would like to get it all down to the bare wood (it looks like it was stripped previous to the dark stain being applied) and I know that I couldn't wall paper the lot as I'm not experienced enough and it would cost a fortune, so the emulsioned walls will have to stay.

What do I tackle first?

misgrace

I would strip the woodwork first, whatever method your using, ie nitromores, or a heat gun, be careful, as some of the nitromores or heatgun will get on your walls, so your best getting the stripping woodwork out the way.

You need to sand the wood after you have stripped, and seal your knots with a knotting solution, then prime your wood, do at least 2 undercoats, of course dont forget to fill any holes etc in your woodwork, then finish with 2 coats of satinwood,(if your going with satin), 3 undercoats with one coat of gloss.

If your going to emulsion, then wait till you have at least done your undercoating on the skirts, emulsion the walls, then do your topcoats on the skirts last.

nickj_2

i wouldn't use nitromors indoors as it gives off very strong vapours , which can be extremely harmful . there are water based strippers such as this
https://www.ecosolutions.co.uk which would be more suitable for inside use

MadMonkey

You could just sand it all down and then prepare it properly with 1-2 coats of undercoat before the gloss ?

I feel your pain - we are currently glossing dark woodwork - but we sanded and then stuck two coats of undercoat on before the gloss.

Tis a nightmare - those spindles........................AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

I could not strip them all down - i would die first !

horseykitty

Thanks for advice - I kind of knew there wasn't going to be a solution that didn't involve a lot of preparation and hard work.
As for the balustrade - as three of the spindles are missing due to having been broken by rowdy kids do you think I would be better off replacing the lot? I haven't got the will to even be thinking about sanding down the spindles and they are obviously not of very good quality if they have broken so easily. Can you get spindles dipped?
Thinking about it makes my head hurt and just tempts me to slap on some more gloss over the chipped paintwork!

MadMonkey

Could you not just sand the chipped bits and gloss over those areas ?

Re-doing the whole area for a few chips would be tough !

TomsMom

horseykitty wrote: »

Can you get spindles dipped?

Yes, we had all our spindles dipped and then waxed them.