Painting Matt over silk...HELP!!

smnb08

Iv moved into a new house and practically everywhere is painted in silk emulsion, I don't like the look of silk emulsion so want to cover with Matt emulsion.

I bought some little tester pots and noticed that the area Ild done a little test had dried a bit crackly....did some research and have discovered it's apparently a big problem painting over silk with Matt?!

Anyway, was adviced by a friend to Pva the walls first (thank goodness I only tried this on one small wall!!)
I that and then when I went to paint it the pva is just completely coming off 😡

Please, please, please can someone advice me the best way to go about this...many thanks xxx

Sedge123

We had this problem. We painted with one of the kitchen and bathroom range paints and its been completely fine.

phill99

Sedge123 wrote: »

We had this problem. We painted with one of the kitchen and bathroom range paints and its been completely fine.

That's because kitchen and bathroom paint is merely silk pint in a different name. so you are simply applying silk paint over silk paint.

phill99

OP. You either need to stabilise the walls with a stabilising solution (from a decent decorators merchants) or use acrylic egg-shell as opposed to matt, which gives the same finish but is made differently.

TheCyclingProgrammer

The friend who advised you to PVA the walls before painting...don't listen to them for decorating advice ever again! PVA is suitable for preparing existing walls before skim plastering, its not for painting over.

Did you give the walls a good sand before you painted them?

I don't agree with the above - eggshell is not the same finish as matt. Its typically anywhere from 15-25% sheen (I know Little Greene eggshell is 15%). Normal vinyl matt is around 7-10% matt I think; ultra flat matt paint by Little Greene/Farrow & Ball etc. is around 2%, their washable matt 5-7%.