Painting new plaster

When you have had either walls or ceilings plastered or skimmed over with plaster you need to know how to paint them correctly to get a long lasting finish.

Firstly ensure they are dry, this will depend on what plastering you have had done. One thing not to do, start painting colour samples on bare plaster, due to the brushes that come with the samples and how thick you apply the sample you will see this on your walls forever unless you rub them down, best to paint on some lining paper or plain white paper, you can then move it around the room and see the colour in different lights. There is a previous post about this Colour samples and testers.

To Paint new plasterwork

Firstly get some sandpaper, not too course, as you don’t want to ruin the new plaster, around 120 grit and lightly rub over the plaster to remove any splashed plaster or drips of dirty water. Then brush the area down to remove any loose dust.

Next, you may well think it’s simply a case of deciding on a colour and painting over the new plaster? STOP!
You should never paint new plaster with a vinyl emulsion as this will sit on top of the plaster leaving a skin or layer that could peel off. You should always paint new plaster with a ‘New Plaster Sealer’ or a non-vinyl emulsion.

I use a non-vinyl emulsion and is my preferred method. I use a matt emulsion, typically white to seal the plasterwork before using a vinyl emulsion colour over the top to complete the job. The ‘New Plaster Sealer’ or a non-vinyl emulsion will soak into the new plasterwork and the finish coats you apply will adhere to this first ‘mist’ coat.

You don’t have to worry about covering the plaster totally, you just need to give it a ‘mist’ coat (as it’s known) to seal the plaster, you’re not looking for complete coverage and opacity.

Once you have mist coated your new plaster you can now apply your choice of finish coat and colour.

Paint Calculator

You may find my paint calculator useful to help work out the quantity of paint you require to mist coat your new plaster and also for your final finish coat. One thing to note, new plaster can be absorbent so slightly more paint maybe required than normal to get a good depth of colour and a good finish.

OK, so you’ve been nagged into doing some DIY at the weekend and have to get out your paint brushes, you head of out to the shed to get them, but when you get there and look at the brushes they look as if they have seen better days. The bristles are all splayed out and it looks like it’s have a ‘bad hair day’!

So how could this been avoided?

Simply put you need to store your brushes, and all equipment for that matter, correctly.
When you have done your decorating and have washed your brushes out you need to store them correctly until the next time your ear is bent to do more decorating

How to store your paint brushes

Once you have finished painting, remove as much paint as you can from the brush by scraping it on the edge of the tin, if your using water-based paints next wash the remaining paint in clean water. If you are using oil-based paints you will need to wash the brushes out in white spirit, turpentine or a brush cleaner before washing in clean water. Once you have ensured you have all the paint out shake the water remaining water out of the bristles. Now take a piece of dry kitchen towel and lay the brush at one edge, now wrap the kitchen towel tightly around the brushes bristles, finally fold the end of the kitchen towel over at the end.

Now you can store you brush away knowing that when you come back to it, your brush will be in good enough condition to use.

A simple but effective way both DIYers and professionals alike can store brushes. Happy decorating!

A review of Dulux Trade Ecosure Undercoat and Gloss

Following on from my last review for TradeXpress, I am doing one this time for Dulux’s Ecosure range. Specifically I am reviewing the Ecosure water-based undercoat and water-based Gloss. Ecosure is Dulux Trade paint that reduces the impact on the environment even further than their standard paints by 30%. This means even lower VOC‘s.

I have never been a big fan of water-based topcoats and have not got on well with them in the past, so was interested to see how things have changed and improved.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Undercoat

I have been using water-based undercoat for many years now and I love it and I use it all the time so wasn’t too surprised to see this in the Ecosure range. Preparation is the same as for any other undercoat, i.e. abrade the surface, make sure the surface is sound, clean and dry. I applied the undercoat using a synthetic brush as recommended for this type of paint, and I was pleased with the results, I was using white undercoat and going over a cream colour. Coverage was good, with good opacity, for a strong colour change a second coat is advised.

I was slightly disappointed with the drying time of 6 hours, this obviously depends on the situation you are working in but the undercoat I am use to using only takes 1-2 hours to dry, so I had to leave the undercoat to dry fully overnight. Coming back in the morning the undercoat had dried leaving a good surface to apply the Gloss too.

The coverage is around 16m² which is only slightly under the standard undercoat coverage. The smell, well being a low VOC and water-based paint the smell was low. I know a lot of people hate the smell of oil-based undercoats and Gloss so will be pleasantly surprised by this paint.

Ecosure Water-Based undercoat comes in pure brilliant white but can be colour mixed, it comes in 2.5L and 5L tins, prices are around £27 and £47 respectively and a colour mixing starts at around £30.
The datasheet for Ecosure Undercoat is 528.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Gloss

Like I said in my introduction, I’ve never been a big fan of water-based topcoats so was a little dubious about what this Gloss could do. I applied the Gloss over my previously prepared and Ecosure water-based undercoated surface that I had left to dry overnight.

Continue reading Dulux Trade Ecosure