Painting skirting boards

cooldudecol

Easter weekend means time to redecorate! I'm pretty much a DIY noob.

I'm going to be painting our skirting boards, but unsure what to do to prepare. As you can see from the pictures, the white paint has been chipped and the old brown is now exposed.

Should I be looking sand or strip everything back to start afresh? Or can I just paint over the top? Is there anything I can do to stop it chipping?

Annie1960

Get a good mask before sanding as some old paints contain lead.

Give it a good sand, and then 2 coats of undercoat. If the dark colour still shows through give it a third coat of undercoat.

The preparation stage will usually take much longer than finishing with a top coat.

Once this has dried, use a top coat of your choice - either gloss or satinwood.

My preference is Dulux but other brands are available.

Alfrescodave

Certainly use a good quality paint, preferably not diy own brands otherwise you'll end up having more layers than an onion before you've covered the brown colour. I usually go for trade paints.