Prepping an already painted surface? - skirting & gloss>satin

JustAnotherSaver

On the verge of finishing off one of the rooms upstairs now & it just needs the door frame & skirting painting.

Door frame has been stripped to wood so no problem there - sand off, prime & then paint.

No plans on stripping the skirting though. It's been glossed but i'm doing everything in satin now.

What's the process with sanding in this instance? I bought a mixed pack which has 60 grit, 100 grit & either 120/150 grit. Do you go crazy with it & sand like a demented fool (which is what i started doing today) with 60 grit with view to then knock it down finer to say the 150, or do you just give it a light going over with the fine & then paint on top of that (once cleaning it after sanding obviously)?

Don't want to paint it all only for it to lift or look crap.



The carpet in this room has ended up being lifted but i intend on doing another room where the carpet will stay down. Any tip on not painting the carpet, aside from putting a cover down? I can't imagine you can (I) can get 'low enough' on the skirting while avoiding the carpet.

phill99

Give it a light sanding to key it.

Apply an oil based undercoat.. Wait for it to dry, typically overnight.

Apply satin wood.

JustAnotherSaver

Thanks.

In other words then, i've gone OTT by doing nuts with the rough sanding & going hell for leather on it then lol.

Paul_the_Painter

Yep, bit OTT. If there is any bare wood you'll need to either use a primer or a primer/undercoat first.

JustAnotherSaver

Paul_the_Painter wrote: »

Yep, bit OTT. If there is any bare wood you'll need to either use a primer or a primer/undercoat first.

Yeah i thought i'd have to do that. Puts the whole process back 24 hours but just a minor dent.

Out of interest what grit paper should be used for the job then? Have i gone too rough with 60 & i should then be going with the 100 instead?


& as i say, how do folk avoid painting their carpets? The bannister post for example sinks into the carpet. The obvious is to put something down - cardboard or something, but then this will stop you getting to the bottom of the post. If you put something down such as plastic that allows you to get further down then i have a good feeling that it wont be good enough to stop paint running/escaping to the carpet, maybe with a pro but not me :rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

I shall be following this, because my take on how woodwork (ie skirting boards and doors) should feel is "As smooth as a baby's bum".

The decorator in my previous house used an electric sanding machine first before painting woodwork and it duly felt that smooth.

So, I would think that its necessary to either use an electric sanding machine or "go hell for leather with the sandpaper" and that if you don't do one of those things then it won't feel dead smooth and therefore isn't good enough.

Paul_the_Painter

I use 120 grit normally. In terms of getting a smooth result, the undercoat has much more of an impact than anything you do with sandpaper. You also want slow drying paint, anything quick drying won't have time to flow to be smooth. Use enough paint on the brush as well, if you using to little paint the brush will drag, and you'll get brush marks as you won't have enough paint to flow and remove the brush marks.

moneyistooshorttomention

Can I ask another paint question?

What is the difference between "paint" and "trade paint"? For instance, between Dulux Matt on the one hand and Dulux Trade Matt on the other hand?

Is "trade" paint better-quality than non "trade" paint or exactly the same thing but cheaper?

cattie

Trade paint is usually more opaque, which is why the professionals tend to prefer it. It can often result in having to do less coats than with a non trade paint.

phoebe1989seb

OP - previously when painting skirting boards where a carpet had already been fitted (the staircases in our last-but-one house), I used a wide metal scraper type tool (around 6" wide) to hold the carpet back and out of the way as a guard to prevent painting the carpet accidentally.

It was rather long-winded - especially as we had several flights of stairs, lol - but did the trick without having to remove acres of carpet