Painting and decorating

Zandimos

Hi all,

Me and my partner are hopefully moving into our first home together and will need to decorate for the first time in our lives.

I have a quick question for you people with more experience than us, do you have recommendations for best rollers and paint brushes? Equally, do you have any decorating tips and tricks that we may find useful?

Thanks in advance

Silvertabby

It's all down to good preparation. Good, sound, plaster is an essential base for wallpaper and paint.

Is your house old, very old or new build?

keith969

Cheap own brand rollers from B&Q are fine. Throw the roll away rather than try and clean it - although if you are going to use the same paint the next day, wrapping in clingfilm or wet cloth to stop it drying out means you can re-use it.

Brushes I tend to spend a bit more on - Harris for example - as it's worth cleaning them.

For preparation, use masking tape on e.g. skirting/door frames/cornices/sockets/switches etc so you can roller right up to the edge thus reducing or eliminating the cutting in time.

For wood, use water based paint rather than traditional oil based - easier to clean brushes, easier to wipe off mistakes. Although for some things e.g. windowsills I'll still sometimes use oil based gloss.

As silvertabby says, its all in the prep.

Fire_Fox

Sugar soap: the luminous yellow liquid in the decorating section. Pound shops or Home Bargains are the cheapest. Use it as part of your preparation to clean grease/ grime/ scuffs and other marks. Diluted on relatively clean surfaces, sprayed in neat on dirtier surfaces.

Sugar soap is a really useful 'Spring cleaning' product generally: tiles, bath, shower stall, sinks, worktops, windows, most hard floors ....

Wear disposable gloves and safety glasses when using sugar soap. Disposable face masks with a filter when doing any dusty DIY task. Can pick these up cheaply at Wilko or pound shops.

HTH.

Ectophile

Rollers come with different degrees of fluffiness. Use a flatter one for smooth walls, and a more fluffy one to get into textured surfaces.


The paint texture you get using brushes or rollers is never the same. So I tend to pick one or the other. But if you do use a roller, then you will need a small brush to do around the edges.

McKneff

Please dont buy cheap foam rollers

Prep, prep,prep

Slinky

keith969 wrote: »

Cheap own brand rollers from B&Q are fine. Throw the roll away rather than try and clean it - although if you are going to use the same paint the next day, wrapping in clingfilm or wet cloth to stop it drying out means you can re-use it.

Disagree with throwing away after one use. We wash ours out thoroughly, thread string though them and hang up to dry. New rollers tend to shed bits of fluff which you end up having to pick off your walls before they dry. Used rollers suffer much less from this.


We do wrap in clingfilm between coats though.


Decent bristle brushes are worth paying for, synthetic bristles dont give as smooth a finish

getmore4less

Practice.

2 coats, first is practice.

I like to do the cut in with a brush then roller as close to the edge as possible
Ceiling,wall,ceiling,wall.

Empty the room, put down a dust sheet, over a plastic sheet if you think you will splash/spill.

For ceilings I find step platform for the cutting in then roller on a pole works best.
(ceilings are tiring on the arms if not fit)

getmore4less

I cut the top off a 2ltr bottle and fill with soapy water to soak roller sleeves.
Ypu can get cleaning rings to push them through to remove a lot of excess first.

If they get a bit tatty keep them for outdoor use.

stillEuropean

If you have several rooms to paint, consider buying your tools at Screwfix, who have a good deal right now for about 20 quid where you get an 18 piece set of rollers (small and large) an extension pole, two paint trays, etc.. Everything you need really. (I just bought one as I've got a whole house to do).

PDC

I've found the paint brushes Aldi sell to be very good.

I've bought cheap and expensive bushes from the big DIY stores in the past and been dissapointed by both.

A good tip above on Screwfix too - I always forget to look there as they tend to be in out of the way places but have found better choice and stock levels than B&Q and Homebase when doing a couple of recent jobs.