Breathable paint advice please!

Jen2019

Hi, we are FTB, just moved into an old house (roughly 250 years old) with very thick stone walls. One of the bedrooms has a damp problem in the corners where the external drains were getting blocked with leaves. This problem is now solved and it's a question of letting the wall dry out (hopefully).

We want to paint the room and breathable paint (clay paint?) seems to be the right choice as it's an old house, BUT we're not sure what the existing paint is. If that is non breathable then spending £££ on breathable paint will be pointless?

Is it worth stripping the paint off and use breathable paint? Will this damage the plaster? Is it better to just use regular (thinking Dulux supermatt) and see what happens? If removing the paint is the way to go, what's the best way to do this?!

We're completely new to all this and any advice and thoughts would be much appreciated :xmassmile

FreeBear

Jen2019 wrote: »

Is it worth stripping the paint off and use breathable paint? Will this damage the plaster? Is it better to just use regular (thinking Dulux supermatt) and see what happens? If removing the paint is the way to go, what's the best way to do this?!

Sand a small area by hand - Don't use a power sander, and do wear a dust mask. If the paint is not very thick, you may well find it doesn't take much effort. It also helps if the paint is a completely different colour to the underlying plaster (lime plaster will be a light grey to creamy white).

If you do have lime plaster on the walls, slapping on a coat of Dulux is not the best thing to do. You are right in choosing clay paint. You could even go for a lime wash which is easy to mix yourself.

WeAreGhosts

I have several rooms done in Earthborn and have been impressed
http://earthbornpaints.co.uk/product/claypaint/#colours

Definitely go for testers, though. I have Kissing Gate in one room and it doesn't look like anything on the colour chart. Much more grey! Glad I bought a tester beforehand.

Jen2019

Thanks FreeBear.

We sanded a small patch by hand (with a dust mask on! :-)) and found that the plaster was pinkish in colour. We assumed this was gypsum and were later informed by the previous owners that it is.

We decided to use Earthborn clay paint anyway, and do not regret it at all! There paint has virtually no smell and gives a beautiful even finish. We've now used it for two rooms already. Ended up needing a 5 L tin plus another almost unused 2.5 L tin found on gumtree locally for a great discount!

Lime wash also sounds great and we will probably get around to doing that in one of the rooms.

Thanks WeAreGhosts, we knew we wanted the white clay so didn't need testers but I'll definitely keep that in mind! :-)