Decorating advice needed

Jimmy_Boy

Hi,

I wont bore you with the long story of how I am in the situation I am in, but essentially I need to carry out some work and would be grateful for some advice.

I am considering buying a Wagner 690 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01F1UY086) to aid with painting, as I would like a decent job and just dont trust myself with a roller / brush to get a satisfactory finish.

I'll try and keep it short, but there are several things that need addressing.

Hole Fixing
I have downlights fitted and the job was not good, resulting in holes which need fixing. The ceiling is new platerboard with about 50mm gap to the original concrete ceiling.
Question : What materials (filler, sand paper grit etc) do I need to fix this correctly?

Painting
The painting is not great and started to peeled off, and with a little help from me (doh!) I have half a wall which is now back to skm. Im thinking it might be a good idea to try and remove all this paint anyway (was done with roller and brush) and use my Wagner sprayer to do it all again.
Question: Should I attempt to peel off all the paint, or should I just leave it as is and apply paint ?
Question: If painting on skim, is it a different process to painting over existing paint? I believe I would have to do a 'mist' coat if painting on skim ?
Question: The room catches the sun and really highlights any imperfections. I have been told there is an 'anti-reflective' paint that may help ? Any input on this?
Question: I believe there is decorators caulk around the door frame and the paint is not giving up so easily to come off there. Should I just remove the decorators caulk (How? What tools needed?)



Wall Smoothing
This doesnt look as bad on camera as it does with your own eyes, especially when the sun in shining in. The walls are not even with some high spots and low spots. Im reluctant to get a plasterer in to re-skim as my experience with traders so far has been downright awful, pay good money for a shockingly bad job.
After googling I come across this - https://www.toolstation.com/toupret-ready-mixed-decorators-skimcoat-filler/p12011
I was hoping that this might be the answer to my problems. If I was to sand (good/bad idea?) the highspots then I could use this to even it all out and it can be sanded back to be painted on for a good finish.
Thoughts ?




Some of these questions might be quite basic, but would be grateful for any input and advice.
Thanks 

Grenage

A decent powdered filler and 220 grit paper should do the job for the downlights.

Use a scraper to remove the loose paint; I normally run an orbital sander over the whole wall to remove what remains.  Sometimes paint won't come off without a fight and you can feather the edges enough that it doesn't matter.  Mist-coat any bare plaster/filler.  You basically want matt paint for uneven walls  - it does however mark much more readily than shinier paint.  I use very matt paint for our ceiligns and matt for the walls (we have no kids).

Decorator's caulk can come off with a stanley blade or sharp knife.  Don't worry about any traces as you'll be caulking it again anyhow.

Highs and lows can be a real effort to level out so it's not a bad idea to be pragmatic if you're not skiming the walls.

Nurselayer

Hi there,
I'm a painter/decorator by trade and I wouldn't use a spray gun to paint walls. I know some people do, but most professional decorators will use a roller and brush.  Here's an article that might help you understand the advantages/disadvantages of each method.  

For filling the holes by the downlight, any decent filler should do the trick. I use One Strike filler as it is lightweight and dries quickly.  With a good filler knife you might be able to get it on smoothly enough to save yourself from having to sand it. BTW, if you paid someone to fit those lights and they left them in that state then I'd be either demanding my money back or asking them to return and make good.

You will need a mist coat if you have the wall skimmed.  What I'd be more concerned about though is why the paint peeled in the first place.  If there is an underlying problem with damp then a skim and a coat of paint are not going to solve that.

As for the uneven wall, I'd either live with it, or pay a good plasterer to give it a skim.  If you were sufficiently patient and skilled then I guess you could sand/fill the wall until it was perfect, but I wouldn't do it that way if I were you.

Whatever you choose to do, best of luck!

Jimmy_Boy

Thanks for the advice guys.

The paint peeling I dont think is anything to be too concerned about. There was an unpainted part around the light socket, I had been running a hot shower for about 30mins and a lot of hot steam had got into the room. Me being me decided to pick at the loose paint by the light socket, and a bit like popping bubble wrap, before I knew it I had taken paint off half the wall! lol (yes, im an idiot )

I think my process will be
1) Remove all paint off the walls (i'll run a hot shower again and get the room hot / steamy), this would mean all the walls are bare skim to work with
2) Remove all decorators caulk
3) Fill in around the lights and sand with 220 if needed

I do have a few additional questions I would be grateful if anyone could assist with.
1) Uneven wall - I would like to at least try something to make it a little better. Its mainly high spots. Im thinking the paint helps highlight the problem areas - with the wall painted could I attempt to sand back the high spots, then rip off the rest of the paint ready for a mist coat? Or would it make more sense to rip all paint off and then try to sand back high spots on the skim?

2) With all the paint ripped off and back to skim, would it require any sanding, should I just leave it as is, or is it something im going to have to evaluate (if so, what exactly am I looking for)

3) I would like to try and have tight edges, ie where the wall reaches the ceiling. Is this a case of sanding those join areas (what grit?) to try and achieve a nice edge ?

4) I KNOW this is a particularly dumb question, but im going to ask it anyway!  Do I apply decorators caulk before or after paint ? Do you apply it with you finger or use any special tools to get a good finish.

5) In relation to the above 2 points, should edge's have caulk? Im assuming not as the scrim tape used when skimming is meant to avoid cracks. Same for internal corners, assuming no caulk is needed ?

6) How many coats of paint? With skim as a base, I need to apply a mist coat, but how many top coats ? 2 ?

I appreciate some of my questions are very novice, but im just not sure of these things. If anyone could point to a good youtube video / channel to point me in the right direction I would be very grateful. I have watched quite a few, but a lot of them are american and they do things slightly different to uk (ie, they use 'mud' and not gypsum plaster)

Thanks again in advance.

neilmcl

Nurselayer said:

You will need a mist coat if you have the wall skimmed.  What I'd be more concerned about though is why the paint peeled in the first place.  If there is an underlying problem with damp then a skim and a coat of paint are not going to solve that.

Probably because a mist coat wasn't used in the first place, looking at that plaster.

@Jimmy_Boy If you're using the spray gun to get a decent finish because you don't think you can do so with a roller/paint brush then think again. There's plenty of videos on YT showing you how to paint correctly. I suggest you watch a few and take your time.

Jeepers_Creepers

1) The downlights - can you remove them temporarily, leave them hanging there? That would be better than trying to work around them. See if you can find something round to fit the hole, tho', to give you the correct shape - something like a cheap plastic plant pot which is tapered. That'll be much easier than trying to shape the round hole afterwards. (You could cut an appropriate slice out of the pot to do the job so it's a 'collar'). Use a craft knife to trim off any raised edges on the rough bits which need filling - ie bevel the edges of the rough holes. If you have masking or duct tape, see if you can stick a bit on the inside of the ceiling to block off the broken holes - it'll just help to stop the filler being pushed up too far and trim it to match the round hole. Fit the collar. Mix up some powdered filler - look for 'easy fill' types products, dead cheap and very effective, but don't use ready-mixed stuff; you want a powder you add water to and which then chemically 'sets'. I'd dampen the exposed edges of the plaster first, and then just knife in the filler, taking care to not push it 'up' there too much so it doesn't end up continuously going in the ceiling! If you use a real kitchen knife, you can press it firmly against the exposed plasterboard edges so's it sticks. Then complete the fill gently until it's nearly flush. Let that set until it's firm - a half hour? - and then blade on a flushing layer. Remove the collar. Allow to fully set and dry, and sand back using 120 grit with a block. Add a further skim if needed.

2) The peeling walls. This is a problem that needs addressing. This is not normal - the paint shouldn't peel off just because some shower steam got to it! That's newly skimmed? Looks an ok job. What I suspect went wrong was that neat paint was applied to this new plaster, and not a diluted 'mist' coat? All that paint needs removing, or almost certainly it's going to keep causing problems. You will likely find that patches come off whenever you freshen up the paint... Once bare, give the skim a gentle going over with 180 or 220 grit paper on a large flat block (you can get paper holders for just this job, usually a half-sheet of sandpaper in size. This will ensure the plaster isn't too polished for taking paint, and make it ready for a fresh proper coat. First coat should be diluted with water by a round 15%.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with a gun, but just a good quality roller - you should get a superb finish from this alone. Guns require the paint to be diluted so much that the coats will be thin. Use good quality tools - a recommended medium-pile roller, tho' I'll leave that to experts to recommend. Once the mist coat has fully dried, give it 2 more neat coats and jobbie jobbed.

3) Existing walls. Wherever there's a bumpy raised previously-filled bit (like you've shown), then first go over it with the large sanding block and 120 or 180 (180 is finer) grit paper to get it level with the surrounding walls; get any raised bits flattened down. Then see if you need to fill any sunken bits to bring it up.

These walls have been previously rollered with what I imagine was quite a deep 'pile' - it's obviously textured (rollering doesn't have to be this obvious, tho' sometime it's good to hide blemishes :-)  ). So, once you've flattened the blemishes, you'll really need to go over the whole wall with your 180 (or 120 used gently) to get that texture removed. If you don't do this, the super-flat bits you've sanded and/or filled will stick out from the rest.

A good quality matt-vinyl (vinyl for durability) should give you enough anti-reflective properties to be acceptable. I wouldn't worry about anti-reflect or 'chalky' paints unless you really feel they are needed.

Also, I'd caution against using a gun. Great in theory. A 'mare in practice. (He says, having never used one for this purpose...)

stuart45

The only thing that I would add to the excellent advice above is to invest in a roller extension pole, which makes life easier and can lead to a better finish for walls as well as the ceilings.

Jimmy_Boy

Thanks for the advice guys, really appreciate it.

Theres not much love here for the use of a sprayer. I would of thought a sprayer should (if calibrated correctly) give good results. I appreciate it may be messy with a lot of overspray etc... but as the room is empty it wouldnt be a massive deal to mask it all up. Also was thinking this would be good to use on skirting, architrave and door frames to give a nice smooth uniform finish, I really dont want to have brush lines on those if I could avoid it.

Whats the main critique of using a sprayer over roller ? Does it not give as good a result? The setup / masking is too time consuming? The cleanup of the tool is annoying / time consuming? Im curious as I have no experience with one.

Thanks again.

neilmcl

You're simply not going to get a decent job out of using a hand held sprayer for a whole room of walls and ceilings, you may get away with it for skirting, architraves etc but anything bigger then you'd be looking at the pro models, which cost over £500. You may as well get a professional in to do the job. 

stuart45

Some of the pro's use a Titan 440, and can get a really good finish, but it's like spraying a car. Not as easy as it looks. People  that use the the gun a lot get used to it. It is quite popular in the USA, but then the wall areas are often a lot bigger there.
One of the key things is knowing how much to thin down the paint. If you end up with runs and curtains etc. it's all making for extra work. Saying all that, even the roller and brushes require a certain skill to get a good finish. 

neilmcl

The Graco sprayers are good but you're looking at £450 for the corded, handheld.