What coats would you recommend?

[glider26]

Hi there, about to paint our hallway, stairwell and landing, going for a duck egg blue. See current colour (olive green?) below. What coats would you remommend? I was thinking of first putting on a coat of (much cheaper) white emulsion, perhaps slightly diluted, then probably two coats of duck egg blue. Thoughts?

 

[Wayners]

Putting cheap contract emulsion that has no vinyl in can cause problems.
It's very dry and can pull moisture out the top coats causing issues.
Some quality durable emulsions have different resins (vinyl) that don't like dry surfaces.
Some recommend a primer if applying over dry surfaces like plaster, filler and builders contract emulsion.
As I primer I used acrylic primer undercoat mixed to top coat colour as a primer or just use your chosen paint.

 

[opps]

As above... the contract emulsions are often designed for painting over freshly applied plaster which is still slightly damp. The lack of acrylic/vinyl allows the moisture to evaporate. The danger is that when you paint over them with regular emulsion, they suck too much moisture out of the new regular emulsion.

Many, many years ago I made the mistake of using Dulux Trade Supermatt as a primer over purple paint in a bathroom. I then applied a light pink waterbased eggshell. The paint failed after a few weeks. I rang the tech team at Dulux, their response was "what do you expect?". I replied that, perhaps, they should warn people not to use it in between coats of regular paints.

 

[Wayners]

I know people think they are saving money or saving time by obligating colour with cheap emulsion but as the saying goes. No shortcuts in decorating.

 

[Koolpc]

Is it good to sugar soap a wall before painting?

 

[glider26]

Thanks for the replies but I feel none the wiser! My opened cans of paint at home don’t seem to specify emulsion or otherwise. So would an undercoat of this below be OK? Half the price of a duck egg emulsion.

 

[opps]

That should be fine.