plastering aan painting my ceiling

solongmarianne

hello all, I have moved into a house where the ceiling is a shocker!!!

the landlord has agreed to plaster over it but not paint it white

my question is can i paint it white using regular white emulsion or do i need a special paint?

iask as the ceiling is peeling the old paint which i assume was the wrong kind,

many thanks

keystone

This sounds like an improperly prepared surface for painting in the first place. If the current paint is peeling it will all have to come off before you do anything. Just skimming over the existing paint is NOT an option because all that will be holding the skim up is an inadequately adhered coat of paint - in due course down it will come assisted by gravity!

I suspect a mist coat (watered down contract matt) was not applied so that the paint has not adhered properly and is now peeling.

You may well find that the plaster is in quite good nick after you remove the existing paint. If so no need to skim at all, you have saved the landlord some money and you can renegotiate the cost allocation with him.

However it may be better in these circumstances once the old paint is off to apply a coat of oil based undercoat rather than a mist coat as any residual paint in the plaster surface will prevent a mist coat doing its job. If you can be certain of getting it all out then by all means mist coat.

Then you can just put your topcoat emulsion straight on using a 90/10 paint/water mix (80/20 if the paint is thick) for the first coat then neat for the second.

Cheers