Paint as smooth as plaster?

SpikyHedgehog

DS2 was cleaning pencil off the magnolia matt paint wall in his bedroom :-( & cleaned rather throughly... Taking it down to the plaster. We'd already planned to paint his room in the summer holidays, so it's a minor annoyance, rather than a major one.

He's decided he loves the plaster effect, both for colour & smoothness. Ok, the colour's not too hard, but is there anyway I can get paint on to be as smooth as plaster? I've got brushes & rollers, & can't afford to have anyone in to do it...

I realise I'm probably asking the impossible... He's on the autistic spectrum, & textures are very important to him, or I'd not even ask!

DVardysShadow

On a new wall, I would suggest using well thinned emulsion. But your problem will be painting out the texture of the existing paint.

Half joking, if you need to detexture the existing I would consider applying an unthinned top quality vinyl emulsion with a plasterer's trowel. Or perhaps applying some unthinned with a roller over a small area at a time and smoothing over with a plasterer's trowel - keeping the trowel cleaned with a damp cloth, which you keep wringing out in a bucket of clean water.

Judging by your name, he must hate your texture.

SpikyHedgehog

Lol, he often tells me he hates me :-) . Today we had 'You really are the meanest mum in the world!' because I wouldn't let him have more cake after he'd grabbed a handful from the cake while cooling on the rack, then stolen DS1s piece left out from my freezing the rest... Guess maybe that's why I get spiky sometimes!

Seriously, he can cope with other textures, & sleeps on apiece of knitting laid over his pillow case. Luckily, he's articulate so can tell me which things he likes/dislikes.

Thank you for the suggestions. The rooms pretty small, so more feasible than in a bigger room. I'll have to get the prep done, then try 1 wall at a time...

nickj_2

you could remove the paint using a nylon scourer and hot water if your son loves the plaster look , obviously it would be a messy time consuming affair but if it's only a small room if wouldn't be too much of a job

DVardysShadow

nickj wrote: »

you could remove the paint using a nylon scourer and hot water if your son loves the plaster look , obviously it would be a messy time consuming affair but if it's only a small room if wouldn't be too much of a job

the look would be fine - but the texture of trowelled plaster would be lost using a scourer. It would however leave the option to skim over, although OP does not wish to spend to get someone in for this.

SpikyHedgehog

No, if I can't do it myself & with the assistance of DS1 (16yrs), it won't be done & DS2 will have to put up with the best match colour & the texture of that. He did check the silk we put on the hallway walls last year & said it was better than his bedroom, but not good enough.

It's also a Housing Association house, that we do want to transfer in the future, so I'd rather not leave the walls looking scoured - I can paint whatever colour we want, though as I am the meanest mummy ever, wouldn't let DS1 paint the little room dark red when he was in it :-). I think the plaster colour will look ok, and will actually go well with the carpet.

It's an over the stairs room, so has 6 walls in total, with the door wall just having a tiny bit of wall either side of the door & the bit above the door, then the built in cupboard has a door going from the ceiling to about 2 foot from the floor, so there's so walls with not much to do on them so DS1 & I can try the technique. And we can then work our way round to the one next to his bed & do that when we're perfect! Or give up & say 'That's the best we can do!'

DVardysShadow

SpikyHedgehog wrote: »

.... He did check the silk we put on the hallway walls last year & said it was better than his bedroom, but not good enough.

Oh dear! A tall order to sort this out. There is something about virgin plaster which has had a good polish put on it by a final trowelling which will be hard to match.

woodencupboard

Perhaps paint the room a nice colour, and then in key areas -next to his bed or where he wants it you could hang a sheet of MDF? Raw from B&Q or similar it has a brown colour a bit like plaster, and if you get the right stuff can be dead smooth, even a bit gloss like glass. Or you could 'panel' the lower half of the room with it, you'd just need to be a bit handy with a drill and some rawlplugs+screws to get it up?

Thinking outside the box like

DVardysShadow

A further thought. Eggshell paint has a texture more like plaster than emulsion.

And a handy colour wheel for choosing colours is at http://www.johnstonestrade.com/natural-colour-system.aspx

SpikyHedgehog

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Oh dear! A tall order to sort this out. There is something about virgin plaster which has had a good polish put on it by a final trowelling which will be hard to match.

DVardysShadow wrote: »

A further thought. Eggshell paint has a texture more like plaster than emulsion.

And a handy colour wheel for choosing colours is at http://www.johnstonestrade.com/natural-colour-system.aspx

Oh dear... Still, when we did the silk, we weren't trying to re-create the plaster effect, & DS2 did help put it on ;-)

The eggshell looks good, I'd not thought of using it before, & the paint wheel has a colour that looks a good match.

SpikyHedgehog

woodencupboard wrote: »

Perhaps paint the room a nice colour, and then in key areas -next to his bed or where he wants it you could hang a sheet of MDF? Raw from B&Q or similar it has a brown colour a bit like plaster, and if you get the right stuff can be dead smooth, even a bit gloss like glass. Or you could 'panel' the lower half of the room with it, you'd just need to be a bit handy with a drill and some rawlplugs+screws to get it up?

Thinking outside the box like

We do have some MDF, left over from DS1's DT project. I'd rather not try that as the first choice option though as he does draw on his walls & knock them, & with the paint I can paint over even if it doesn't look as good as the first time, but if he knocks the MDF it will scar it...

I'm not that handy with a drill ;-) more a bit nervous lol though I managed to get a sheet of fibreboard drilled & up as the replacement bath panel & battens up in the hallway for curtains. Errant Husband has his drill back again now & mine won't go into walls as it's a bit (b-boom!) feeble.