New to Decorating, help please!

talulahbeige_2

Hi
I live in a rented house and as we are going to stay there for a while we want to paint a couple of the rooms. However it has been a while since it has been decorated and I'm not sure where to start to make sure it is prepped correctly.

In all the areas we want to do the paint is flaking off, therefore if i just paint over it it will look awful and nodoubt carry on flaking. How do i prepare the walls correctly? I dont want to paper over things, just re-paint.

Also some of the wall plaster is coming off, how do i cover this up before i start?

Thanks in advance
x

Atelier

What you need to do is remove as much of the loose paint as possible to give you a stable base.

Depending upon the size of the area and thickness of the paint you will then need to sand down the edges to blend the remaining paint down to the plaster or use some of the new lightweight polyfillers to make up for the lost paint.

Might be worth now applying some watered down PVA glue or watered down emulsion to improve adherance to the plaster before putting the top paint coats on.

A light sanding between coats of paints will help the final finish as well.

Hope this helps.

talulahbeige wrote: »

Hi
I live in a rented house and as we are going to stay there for a while we want to paint a couple of the rooms. However it has been a while since it has been decorated and I'm not sure where to start to make sure it is prepped correctly.

In all the areas we want to do the paint is flaking off, therefore if i just paint over it it will look awful and nodoubt carry on flaking. How do i prepare the walls correctly? I dont want to paper over things, just re-paint.

Also some of the wall plaster is coming off, how do i cover this up before i start?

Thanks in advance
x

danmurray

- If paint is flaking, use an abrasive (i.e. 120g sandpaper) to smooth off

- Prime the areas that look bad after sanding with a waterbased primer

- Small areas of loose plaster can be repaired using a Plaster Repair (i.e. Polycell)

- bare plastered walls should be treated with an appropriate sealer, i.e. watered down matt or a paint specially formulated for it...
- Do not use PVA on the walls if you're going to paint over them!

olias

Have you tried approaching your landlord and asking for it to be done?

If he won't pay for this, but is happy for you to do it, why not try and negotiate for him to at least pay for the materials as it is obviously his property that will benefit

Olias