How to Decorate a 1930's House?

beachbeth

We live in a 1930's semi-detached and over the years have added extensions and done it up as best we can. The older parts of the house don't have cavity wall insulation and there are two rooms that suffer from damp - certain walls start to develop black areas. One is the main bedroom and one is the 2nd bedroom. These both have two outside walls as they are situated at two corners of the house. They both have an airbrick and windows are double glazed.

We want to redecorate our main bedrooms in a few weeks and I would love to have new furniture but can't afford it. At the moment we have white fitted wardrobes all along one outside wall, dressing table fitted into an alcove on another wall and our bed with cupboards over on the 3rd wall. The 4th wall is mainly taken up with the bay window and has a curved radiator on it (this has begun leaking badly and we have got to start by getting a new one for about £200!!!)

I think the wall with the wardrobes on is a problem wall. The wardrobes, although they look fitted, are actually freestanding and there is a gap between them and the wall and I think this traps damp air. We were thinking of moving these onto the wall where our bed is instead, as this is an internal wall, and putting our bed on the wall where the wardrobes are. I was thinking this would create a freer flow of air.

The wall with the bay window gets the black damp patches too, even though the window is double glazed and the radiator sits there too.

Are there any paint or wallpaper products we can put on these problem walls to prevent the damp? Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Atelier

The black mold is caused by water and this could be caused by condensing of the water in the air or from water ingress from behind. Because you are having problems in other areas with a better flow of air then I would suspect that it is from inside of the wall.

If it was me then I would look at getting the guttering cleared out and checked for any obvious leaks to make sure the rainwater is running down the drainpipe and not the wall. Then get give the mold areas a clean with a bleach solution to clear as much as possible away, improve the air flow and wait to see if it reappears.

Other thought are:

you might want to have a look in the loft to see if you can see anything that might give you a pointer to the problem.

The wall finish might also be stopping water from escaping from the wall and creating an excessive build up. Say someone has put gloss paint there in an attempt to stop the damp coming through.

You can get rolls of thin polystyrene that can be used to cover a wall that suffers from condensation (you put it on and then apply wall paper or lining paper over it). I used it in my first house (circa 1900s) where we were having a little condensation and it worked well.

Hope this helps

beachbeth

Thanks for your reply. We actually painted the wall behind our wardrobes to freshen it up before we put the wardrobes there - seems from what you say that this was a bad thing to do! Do we need to get some paint remover on this wall do you think? (Im dreading pulling the wardrobes out and seeing what state this wall is in as they've been there for years). I open our bedroom windows every day even in winter as this stops the musty smell in the room and hopefully helps with the damp.

We do have some water leakage from some guttering outside the problem wall in the 2nd bedroom. Ive noticed it dripping on an outside path many a time. It never occurred to me that this was causing the problem in the bedroom above. I'll get my OH to look at it. We can see if theres anything similar outside the main bedroom. Thanks for your help.

Atelier

Standard emulsion should be fine as it does breath to a certain extent.

The dripping water looks like a good suspect. The nice thing is that it is one of the easier ones to fix and should clear up fairly quickly

beachbeth wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. We actually painted the wall behind our wardrobes to freshen it up before we put the wardrobes there - seems from what you say that this was a bad thing to do! Do we need to get some paint remover on this wall do you think? (Im dreading pulling the wardrobes out and seeing what state this wall is in as they've been there for years). I open our bedroom windows every day even in winter as this stops the musty smell in the room and hopefully helps with the damp.

We do have some water leakage from some guttering outside the problem wall in the 2nd bedroom. Ive noticed it dripping on an outside path many a time. It never occurred to me that this was causing the problem in the bedroom above. I'll get my OH to look at it. We can see if theres anything similar outside the main bedroom. Thanks for your help.