Re-decorating Wall

[brucej]

We are currently re-decorating our house. This is our first house so we are very new to it all. We plan to remove wall paper and dado rails and paint the wall a plain colour eg off white.

Removing the wallpaper has been a lot easier than we anticipated, but the wall underneath has very small dents and chips in the paint. Is there an easy way to improve these... they look too small for filler. Would covering with a liner paper before painting help. Is there any paint that would help fill the dents and chips, or are we now committed to having the wall replastered.

would appreciate any advice anyone has to offer.

regards Bruce

[Colin M]

I've never been happy with the effect of painted lining paper on old walls. As the dado removal will probably need filling, I'd invest in a skim coat particularly as you plan on an almost white wall.

Colin

[Marc Lee]

Just doing the same.

Lots of sanding, Pollyfilla where possible, then about to apply a coat of Polycell Basecoat (see my post last week) to try and cover up the worst of the imperfections.

Good luck Marc

[stuart noble]

The rustic look seems to be the fashion at the moment, painting on to bare plaster and highlighting all the imperfections. Personally, I'd line the walls after giving it a couple of coats of 1pva: 4 water. This makes the paper much easier to move around and it's flatter when it dries. If you need to fill the dents, which is unlikely if you didn't notice them before, apply sloppy Polyfilla with a plasterer's trowel. This way you shouldn't need to rub it down afterwards. Of course you get it all over the wall but it doesn't matter as long as it's flat.

[RichardS]

Go over the wall with something to scrape off the small high-spots that may be present, then just mix up one of the gritty fillers - polycell, mangers and the likes. Apply to the dents, scrape off level whilst still workable, then go over with a sanding block with coarse paper when it's all dried. (wear a mask, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you that).

Prime/size the walls with weak paste/pva/basecoat/whatever, then line with a HEAVY lining paper - you want 1000 or 1200 g/sq.m to best hide imperfections.

You can now paint away to your heart's content. I'd recommend an initial coat with a matt trade emulsion because going straight on with an expensive colour coat will just use more paint - the lining paper will soak up a fair amount.

It works well - I've done this in a few of the rooms of our house, none of which had perfect plasterwork by any stretch of the imagination. You'd not tell that there are imperfections underneath now, and I _am_ fussy about standards of decoration.

cheers Richard

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[N. Thornton]

Filler does work, I find it can be smoothed with a finger better than with a metal tool.

A reskim would give you a more perfect surface, but isnt really necessary if youre plaster's basically sound. Depends what you want to spend your money on.

Lining paper is not ideal, it is often used on walls that are in a rough state as a cheap fix.

Finally using a paint with some body also helps to reduce the appearance of those jagged paint edges. Undercoat intended for gloss paint works for this, though it does cost much more than emulsion, and smells for a while. I used that approach a couple of times.

Regards, NT