Help - Peeling paint!

Loobysaver

We had our hall, stairs and landing skimmed and painted about 5 years ago. It looked nice but I noticed that every time the wall was bumped/knocked the paint would peel off really easily in that area.

After reading lots of threads in this forum I think that must be something to do with the paint we used. I want to re-decorate now so would like to get it right!

I did the mistcoat with watered down vinyl silk (didn't know you weren't supposed to) and painted the walls with crown silk paint.

I've picked at a piece of the paint and a massive 30cm strip came off - very much like wallpaper stripping! It's only the actual top coat that is peeling, the mistcoat is still there as I can see the white paint.

My question is - What do I need to do to prep the walls now? Shall I continue peeling off all the paint? Also, can I just gently sand down the walls and then repaint or is it more complicated then that??

I'm pants at decorating so lots of advice needed!!!

Thanks

poppyolivia

Not an expert but...I think you would DEFO need to get rid of the top layer thats peeling....sanding probably be quicker....then paint as usual???

Like I said not an expert...but someone will be along soon hopefully to help you out.

Good luck x

real1314

I think someone had a similar problem recently on here, they used a tungsten carbon stripping knife (used a tungsten steel knife myself recently - didn;t seem to be as good as they suggested the tung-carb one was) - get 'em from most places.

tried a search but couldn;t find it - have a wade through - there was some very good advice

Loobysaver

Kuztardd wrote: »

you will get a couple of guys on here soon with their usual great replies, they helped me out hugely when i had paint blisters and paint that could be peeled off.

have a quick read of
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=469244
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=464743

basically we had to remove all the paint that was there, we used a scrapper and it was dead easy.


then we sugar soaped the walls (this is a cleaner)

then we used an oil based underrcoat that was thinned out with thinner.

once dry, we then used our normal emulsion paint(thinned out with water), then painted it again with the paint not thinned out.

When you stripped your paint off, were you left with bare plaster or was the original mistcoat still left on the wall?

djohn2002uk

Your problem was in using vynil silk as your first coat, better to use matt. The manufacturers will tell you that vynil silk needs sanding with fine sand paper to take the sheen off before applying more emulsion or you'll get exactly the symptoms you have. If you can remove all the peeling paint totally then sand it with fine sand paper, wipe all the dust off with a damp cloth and you should then be able to confidently apply your new paint.

Loobysaver

Well I've managed to completely remove all the paint as it came off quite easily in big strips! I'm just left with the original silk mistcoat that I did after the walls were skimmed.

So do you think that if I give the walls a sand and then do a coat of watered down matt emulsion before I do the top coat that will work??

rygon

Ive just repainted my bathroom and i found out that the plaster hadnt been primed beofre they put silk paint on. I found using a wallpaper stripper to remove it was best...steaming the paint made it hard work and messy. All i did was buy some priming paint...gave it 1 coat then a couple of coats with silk paint and thats seems to have done the job

dld2s

Loobysaver wrote: »

Well I've managed to completely remove all the paint as it came off quite easily in big strips! I'm just left with the original silk mistcoat that I did after the walls were skimmed.

So do you think that if I give the walls a sand and then do a coat of watered down matt emulsion before I do the top coat that will work??

I don't see why not, the sanding down will provide a "key" for the paint to adhere to, but remember after sanding wipe the walls down and let them dry before putting the matt on, Dulux Matt gets good reports

djohn2002uk

Loobysaver wrote: »

Well I've managed to completely remove all the paint as it came off quite easily in big strips! I'm just left with the original silk mistcoat that I did after the walls were skimmed.

So do you think that if I give the walls a sand and then do a coat of watered down matt emulsion before I do the top coat that will work??

Half right.
Make sure you sand it with fine grade paper and don't miss anywhere. Then don't thin the paint anymore than 10% and you might even get away with one coat but I always use 2 coats when changing the colour unless the old colour is lighter than the new.