Undercoat?

Niggy_2

I am currently in the course of decorating my lounge and in the process have removed the dado rails. This has inevitably removed a quantity of plaster which I have filled and sanded till nice and smooth.

This has left me with a problem. I now have areas of nice smooth plaster and large areas of rough old paint and I am concerned that this will show through when we start painting. I intend to sand down the walls but would like to have a really nice smooth finish. I have been looking at products like Basecoat by either Polycell or Crown but these seem rather pricey at £25 for 5L and I don’t know whether it's a little overkill (I have already filled in any visible cracks) Wickes do a undercoat at £11 for 5L would this give me the desired finish?

I have read that professionals like to paper the wall then fill the joins before painting but I have never papered before and don’t want to go to that much trouble. By the way we are only using matt emulsion so it's not like we have to achieve a perfect surface, as if we were using gloss, but I would still like to achieve a nice result.

Any ideas?

TIA

Niggy_2

Sorry for bumping this but I'm gonna get cracking again this weekend and any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

weekendwarrior

Hi niggy,

When you say undercoat do you mean oil based undercoat?

If so it will not give the desired effect and will probably make the job much harder as it does not spread as well as emulsion.

The base coat is expensive but it does do a very good job of hiding poor walls underneath.

Have you considered rag rolling the walls? My ex-girlfriens did this on some very rough walls in my old house and it hid almost every imperfection!

Other than that I would suggest trying what you intend an a small area first to ensure it works.