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Painting, decorating and home improvement tips blog

Some recently completed painting and decorating work

Posted by Adrian
March 23rd, 2018

Some recently completed painting and decorating work

I have decided to do a post about some of my recently completed work, these are only a selection of work I have done in the past couple of months. They include water damage repair, a wallpapering job and an emusioning job, coincidentally they are all bedrooms.

Water stain to ceiling and walls

The first job shown here was of a water stain to a ceiling and walls. The stain was treated and then the ceiling was painted with white emulsion, with the walls being painted a pink tone emulsion. The woodwork was painted in white satinwood and finally a feature wall was papered to complete the job.

Water stain, paint and paper bedroom

Wallpaper in a bedroom

This job was a simple remove old wallpaper and border, paint the ceiling white and re-paper the walls with a floral patterned wallpaper. No woodwork was done.
I removed the old wallpaper and border, filled some small holes and cracks before painting the ceiling with white emulsion. Finally I hung the floral wallpaper to complete the job.
Floral wallpaper

Painting in a bedroom

The third job I am showing you was a repaint in a bedroom. I started by filling some small holes, there wasn’t much filling to do as the ceiling and walls had been papered. I then painted the ceiling down to the picture rail with white emulsion, then I painted the picture rail before painting the walls in a green colour. The remaining woodwork was painted with white satinwood. The door and floor was not touched, although I had previously varnished them.

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How to Choose a Paint Roller

Posted by Adrian
September 23rd, 2016

How to Choose a Paint Roller

When it comes to painting walls, ceilings or trim you need to consider the type of roller you need to use for the best results for the job you are doing. This not only includes the length of the roller but the nap or pile of the roller, a bigger nap roller will hold more paint, whereas as a smaller nap roller will hold less but will give a smoother finish.

You also have to have the correct roller cage or arm for the roller sleeve. Roller sleeves have a different diameter core, or hole, for where the cage fits into, it may have a 1 ½ inch or a 1 ¾ inch core so make sure you have a matching cage and roller sleeve.

Some rollers, such as a 4 inch mini rollers don’t need a cage, the sleeve has a small diameter core that slides over a arm. This is essentially a length of metal that has a right angled bend on the end to accept a mini roller sleeve. If you get a long arm for a 4 inch microfibre sleeve it is ideal for getting into those hard to reach places such as behind a radiator.
Some manufacturers do however make small rollers that do need a small ¾ frame for there 4 inch rollers.

Choosing the right roller sleeve for the job

Below is a list of roller sleeve pile thickness (nap) for a particular job, there are slight variations between manufacturers so thickness given is only a guide.

  • Short pile – ⅜ nap (10mm approx) Ideal for smooth surfaces, newly plastered ceiling and walls, emulsions, eggshell and satin finishes.
  • Medium pile – ½ nap (13mm approx) Ideal for semi-rough surfaces such as Artexed ceiling and walls, flat walls and ceilings, emulsions.
  • Long pile – ¾ nap (19mm approx) Ideal for semi-rough to rough surfaces, emulsions, masonry paint.
  • Extra long pile – 1 ¼ nap (32mm approx) Ideal for rough to very rough surfaces, masonry paints, emulsion.
  • Mini microfibre roller – ⅜ nap (10mm approx) Ideal for smooth finishes, emulsion, new plaster.
  • Foam roller – High Density Foam Ideal for smooth finishes, trim, gloss, satin and varnishes.

So basically a thin nap is ideal for flat surfaces, trim etc and thick nap is ideal for rough textured surfaces such as heavy artex or masonry. Foam rollers are great for trim, doors etc.

It is worth paying for a decent roller set up if you intend to use it more than once, some cheap DIY store offerings should be avoided as they do not last and the sleeve may molt leaving you with bits of roller sleeve in you paint, or you spending more time picking bits out of the paint rather than painting.


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Roller sleeves

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How to repair an Artexed ceiling

Posted by Adrian
August 2nd, 2016

How to repair an Artexed ceiling

I recently decorated a room for a client, part of the job was to repair an Artexed ceiling where the joint tape had come away for whatever reason, either previous water damage or simply failed tape.

I decided to make a video showing how I repaired the ceiling and through to its completion, painted.

So here is the short video showing the steps taken from start to finish.

The same principles can be applied for Artexed walls also.

You may also want to read this article, How To Remove Artex, specifically the section headed “Artex And Health Issues” especially if you have older Artex in your house.

How to repair an Artexed ceiling video

A short video showing step by step how to repair an Artexed ceiling.


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