Painting And Decorating in and around Southend For 30 Years

March 2023 sees the 30^th year of my decorating career. It was thirty years ago this month that I first picked up my paint brushes and rollers and started painting and decorating. I have worked in a few places around the UK during this time, but I prefer to stay close to home, here in Southend on Sea and the surrounding areas.

Over the past 30 years of painting and decorating I have seen a lot of changes, not only in the painting industry but the economy also, as we all worry about the current living costs here in the UK, and further afield the war in Ukraine. And of course how the pandemic, Covid-19, changed many things for us, including work practises and day to day living. We have all had uncertain and hard times, but I’m still here and ready to decorate your property. So if you would like some work done, contact me for an estimate.

I have undertaken commercial work as well as residential work in my career and painted properties from warehouses to high street shops, to mansion houses, but most commonly I decorate residential properties, just like yours.

Styles and fashions continually change, and over the past 30 years there has been styles come and go, and come around again. Colours change as fashion does, and if you want to know the colours for 2023 have a look at my colour trends for 2023 post .

Painting And Decorating Website And Blog

Over the past eighteen years or so my website has had many designs, and my blog has grown and grown with many posts explaining how to decorate, how things are done and product reviews, with now in excess of 120 posts.

I also created and written the code for four materials calculators, a wallpaper calculator, a ceiling paper calculator, a tile calculator and a paint calculator, these have proved to be very popular with lots of hits per day with people working out their materials. These are used not only by DIYer’s but tradesmen also.

I enjoy writing blog post’s, although I don’t blog as much as I did for several reasons, but I like helping people who want to do painting and decorating or DIY jobs around the house but are not sure how to go about it. I find this very rewarding.

New Media

I continue to use social media, you can find me on Facebook, I also have a LinkedIn page, also a YouTube channel.

I can’t believe it has been 30 years, I would like to thank my past, present and future clients for their custom and continued support.

Types of wallpaper paste

There are many types of wallpaper paste and choosing the correct one can be confusing. Hopefully this post will help you decide the appropriate paste for the paper you are hanging.

The first place to look is on the hanging instructions themselves, this may come as a leaflet that came with the paper of a leaflet in the roll itself. If you are at all unsure ask your supplier or the wallpaper manufacturer directly.

Cold water paste

This is the type of paste that you mix yourself, you mix it with cold water. The amount of water depends on the type of paper being hung, you can find out how many litres of water to use on the paste sachet or box it comes in.

Getting it mixed correctly is the important part so it is strong enough to hold the paper. It is the easiest paste to remove as it is water soluble. This type of paste is starch based.

Here is a short video of how to mix the perfect wallpaper paste up:

All purpose

This paste is made for the majority of wallpapers from lining papers, to embossed and vinyl papers, but you should always check before using paste, especially on specialised papers.

Heavy duty

As the name suggests, this paste is for heavy duty or heavy weight papers, giving stronger adhesion than standard adhesives. It is however harder to remove when redecorating and if you get paste on the front of the paper, so care should be taken not to mark or damage the front of the paper and remove any excess paste as soon as possible.

Extra strong

This type of paste can be in the form of a powder paste or ready mixed, it is ideal for medium weight papers such as lining paper, embossed and anaglypta papers.

Paste the wall

As the name suggest, paste the wall adhesives mean you apply the paste direct to wall and not the back of the paper. This paste is only used for paste the wall papers as the paper has been designed that way and pasting the paper isn’t required.

Ready mixed

Ready mixed pastes come in tubs and are formulated and are vinyl based and do not dry out until they are exposed to air, such as when applied hung wallpaper. Some wallpapers recommend using a ready mixed paste whereas some wallpaper manufacturers may recommend their own ready mixed paste to ensure good adhesion to the surface the paper is being applied to.
The ready mixed pastes do tend to be more expensive than say cold water mixed pastes.

Wallpaper Calculator

Apart from your paste, you will need how many rolls of wallpaper, or ceiling paper to buy. We have a handy calculator for you do work out how many rolls you need to buy. Simply go to our Wallpaper calculator or Ceiling paper calculator, enter the measurements and hit the submit button, the amount of rolls you require will then be returned.

How to cut wallpaper

If you are hanging any type of wallpaper, making a good clean cut can make or break a job. The last thing you want to see are torn ragged edges, so the key to cutting wallpaper is to use sharp tools.

Scissors

Scissors can be used to trim paper, cut paper and remove excess paper as you hang, so a good paper hanging pair of scissors are always good to have to hand when wallpapering. To use scissors to trim the top and bottom of the paper, use a pencil to mark a line where you need to cut making sure the paper is well pushed in. Mark and then lift the paper slightly and trim carefully along the line with the scissors or papering shears.

Knife

A knife is the most popular choice, and the best type to use are a craft knife or one that has snap off blades. This way you can simply snap an end off and you have a sharp cutting edge again, this should be done regularly to avoid the knife dragging and tearing the paper. The amount of cuts between each ‘snap’ of blade will depend on the surface you are cutting on to. Wood and plaster will blunt the blade quickly.

To trim the paper make sure the paper is pushed well into where the cut will be, then use something like a wide scraper to hold the paper and then cut along the edge with a sharp knife. Having a sharp knife will make life easier and you can trim on one cut.

Other tools

There are a number of other tools on the market such as rotary cutters, battery powered cutters, triangle shaped and wedge shaped cutter. All these tools work on the same basic principle, they use a sharp cutting blade to trim the paper. Some I have to say are more successful than others, and some last better than others but at the end of the day it is personal preference to which tool you prefer to use.

Wallpaper Calculator

If you need to work out how many rolls of wallpaper to buy, why not use our Wallpaper Calculator to do it, it even has a feet to metre convertor.