Flaky paint

[jackboy29]

Hi All,

I’ve been stripping wall paper and some of it has some very flaky paint underneath. I used a razor blade scraper to remove all the bad stuff and then a bit more and basically left with half a wall of good paint and half stripped back to a grey smooth type plaster. I’m wondering what my best options are to achieve a satisfactory finish.

1. Sand it down and mist coat the whole lot and try to level out the difference between the painted and unpainted section with few coats of paint.

2. Mist coat and paint only the stripped section so both halves have a layer of paint on then fill the join between.

3. Easi-fill the stripped section and sand down but this is quite a large fill as it’s half the wall.

Thanks for any advice. I know I could skim plaster the whole room but thinking about what diy options I could use to get an ok finished. Will be using Matt paint at the end. Cheers

 

[JohnD]

How old is the house?

D**t*m**r

 

[opps]

Hi All,

I’ve been stripping wall paper and some of it has some very flaky paint underneath. I used a razor blade scraper to remove all the bad stuff and then a bit more and basically left with half a wall of good paint and half stripped back to a grey smooth type plaster. I’m wondering what my best options are to achieve a satisfactory finish.

1. Sand it down and mist coat the whole lot and try to level out the difference between the painted and unpainted section with few coats of paint.

2. Mist coat and paint only the stripped section so both halves have a layer of paint on then fill the join between.

3. Easi-fill the stripped section and sand down but this is quite a large fill as it’s half the wall.

Thanks for any advice. I know I could skim plaster the whole room but thinking about what diy options I could use to get an ok finished. Will be using Matt paint at the end. Cheers

1. Might work but not if the walls were previously painted with a vinyl silk paint. That stuff doesn't sand very well.

2. Seldom works, that is, unless you apply lots of coats and then sand back the excess that has strayed on to the existing paint. You will need to use full fat paint after the first mist coat.

3. That should work. However, Easyfill is extremely soft. You will probably see a "step" where the sanded filler meets the paint.

I would recommend using lining paper. You can hang one layer, if you can still see a slight step, you can either use a sander connected to a dust extractor (read: vacuum cleaner) to sand the step out, or you can hang another layer of paper to graduate out the step.

If you do go down the lining paper route, do not forget to "size" the bare plaster first.

 

[jackboy29]

Thanks for the replies. House is 1979/1980 so hopefully nothing too nasty in the paint if I start sanding. Could potentially have lead so don’t want to do too much sandings. Don’t really want lining paper so will experiment with a few things to try and get a good acceptable finish. If it’s awful I’ll have to plaster skin over

 

[opps]

Waterbased emulsion never contained lead.

Just out of interest, why don't you want lining paper. As a decorator I routinely recommend that clients have the walls lined even if they have been re-skimmed. I prefer the tactile feel of lining paper and it makes the walls feel warmer to the touch. If done properly you should not be able to see any joins. Additionally it helps mask minor cracks that may appear later.

Every man to his own though.

 

[jackboy29]

That’s good to know re the lead. Regarding the paper I guess it’s just personal preference but I don’t like paper anywhere really. I find that eventually it gets damp behind especially around windows and it’s my goal to eliminate it everywhere in my house. My wife puts washing on the radiators despite my repeated requests and slowly the paper around the radiators has also started to lift away.

 

[opps]

Paper lifting is either the result of poor hanging or excessive condensation/poor airflow. That said, no, wet towels won't help.

To date, I can only think of one room that I lined that suffered damp issues. It was a bathroom. At the time I didn't realise how steamy it would get. I ended up going back and painting the walls with waterbased eggshell and stressed that the client fitted an extractor fan.

But if you don't want paper then fair enough.

Best of luck with whichever option you go for.