Urgent advise with painting matt over silk paint

[beester]

Hi,

I could really use some urgent advise, I have run into a disastrous situation with putting matt paint over silk paint in my kitchen, the finish has crazed all over the place and looks terrible.
What makes this so urgent is this is for a rented house that I am moving out of at the weekend, I painted it with a crown red silk paint when I first moved in and have to paint it back to magnolia so I can get my deposit back.


So far I've painted about 4 coats of B&Q trade matt emulation and it just seems to be getting worse, it was only then that I thought ... hang on sometimes defiantly not right here!! So I trawled the internet and found out what a big no no it is.
I've read through the forums here and got some really good tips but because of the time constraints in place (and a lot of packing still to do) I am limited in what I can do so there are still some questions I would greatly appreciate if someone could help with.

Last night I rub down a relatively small area of a large kitchen wall practically back to the plaster and repainted it, this morning it seemed a little better but not by a great deal and it would take a miracle to get the whole thing rubbed down and repainted over the next 2 evenings.
Is there anything I can put on top of my 4 layers of matt emulation with out having to rub it down first that would solve the problem?


I am considering the following options
- buying a tin of satin\sheen type paint and putting this over the matt thats up there in the hope for a better finish.
- putting a layer of PVA over the walls and then painting on top of that
- buying a tin of undercoating type paint like 'polycell basecoat 5in1', this to me seems like the best option as from the read up it will cover up the cracks


Has anyone tried any or all 3 of these before, I don't expect to get the finish perfect now but better than what it is currently is a must.
Any advice here is greatly appreciated thanks.

[JohnD]

don't use PVA

As it is a kitchen, how did you clean it to remove the film of greasy dirt?

[beester]

... urrm im embaressed to say I didn't on reflection and after talking to some other people it seems like I should have used sugar soap, do you think this is the reason its gone so badly?

[JohnD]

might be one of the causes.

Give it a good scrub, if dirt is preventing adhesion the new paint may come off so you can have a go at the surface. You can soften new emulsion with water.

[beester]

Thanks for the advise
I am guessing though that I will have to try and wash all the matt off of the wall before it will make any difference using sugar soap on the silk paint and then a rub down of the silk is still required?
...Its that part of the job that I'm not sure if I will be able to find the time to do and so far no amount of offering beers and sweets to my friends has coxed them into helping

Putting another coat of something with like an undercoat would be quicker given the size of the place.
Has anyone ever tried this?

... glad I didn't waste my time with the PVA option

[verbal]

In your situation I'd try coating the lot with Zinsser 1-2-3 and then your 2 coats of maggy.

[Third_Eye]

Wet the matt emulsion 3 times (2 mins at each stage of wetting) then slightly scrape off with an scraper whilst taking care not damaging the previous applied silk.

Once finished as advized above, rub down the silk getting rid of sheen.

Then apply Leyland Vinyl Matt (Magnolia).

You will never believe but the amount negative reactions i get when i explain to many people about using certain paints over certain paints can cos short, meduim and long term negative problems is unbalievable.

Some claim i make it up !

[beester]

Thanks for the tips!

Last night I went home and put a layer of 'polycell basecoat 5in1' to bridge those gaps, no such luck, woke up this morning and found the crazing had come back again... jeez, wish I had just washed the matt off as Third_eye suggests as couple of days ago, now I'm not so sure if scrubbing it off will be as easy with the polycell stuff on.

Thanks for the tip on the 'Zinsser 1-2-3' product verbal, I checked it out on the net and that is the sort of product I was thinking might fix the problem and imagined would exist somewhere, problem is I can't find it for sale in the Swindon area

So ive brought some 'Leyland Vinyl Matt' and tonight I am going to try a few more things...
- test it on a small area of the wall 'as it is' and see if with this basecoat on top it will take to the paint.
- try scrubbing down a reasonable area of the wall and prep , as 'Third_eye' suggests, see how long it actually takes and paint with the Vinyl Matt afterwards,

Then give it 4-5 hours to see if any of them take.
Failing that I am going to try some 'Polyseal smoothover' for Vinyl coverings and if that doesnt do the job either then im going dig a hole in the garden put my head in it and scream until the landlord comes and takes my deposit away

Will let you people know how it went next week!!!

[JohnD]

the sooner you clean off your paint the easier it will be (it will harden over time)

get wetting and scraping

[beester]

OH YES SUCCESS !!!!!

Here's what I did, slightly different to what I planned.
In sympathy of the problem, my lovely girlfriend had gone out and brought a tin of cheap magnolia 'Homebase vinyl silk'.
Time was running incredibly short, I hadn't packed and I decided that it was better to get my stuff out of the house and leave the kitchen a mess rather than the over way around.
As a last ditch attempt my parents came round and lended me a hand, I had to make a decision, asking them to clean off all the paint and then repaint from scratch didn't go down too well so with a flip of a coin (quite literally) we went we for a coat of the cheap home base vinyl silk.
within 1 hour and a single coat the walls where covered and on tender hooks I checked it the following day and it still looked fantastic, thank my lucky stars.

But its hard to say exactly what fixed it.
It would seem that putting 4 layers of matt magnolia and then a polycell 5in1 covering did finally give it a strong base coat, but I must admit there where areas of the wall (just above the cupboards) that I had only done 1 coat of cheap magnolia matt because they where hard to reach and they covered fine too.
It would almost seem that the more layers of matt I put on made it nothing but worse, until put I put on the polycell 5in1 which recovered the problem slightly and made the vinyl silk look better there too.

On reflection, I should have rubbed it off as third_eye says, initially I was given bad advice being told that I would have to rub it down using sandpaper which made an awful amount of mess when I had neither the time or the ability to take over the kitchen like that.
If I was to ever fine my self in the same situation again, I would of course sugar soap of the walls first, but the polycell 5in1 certainly helped to get the whole thing back to a workable state, I wouldn't really advise my method though!! except in an emergency like mine, the kitchen looks good now but I wouldn't be surprised if it starts going bad and the paint comes off the walls, if it was my house and I had all the time in the world I would have put in the elbow grease.

Thanks to everyone for there advice, and a big thanks to my mum+dad and lushous girlfriend.
I hope my experience will help out some other cowboy tenants who may find them selves in the same situation one day, yeeee haaaaw