Preparing to paint over varnish or old stained wood

I recently did a job that had new fire doors installed and because of this new door stops also had to be fitted, when the stops were fitted the paint came away with the old door stops. The paint had been applied over stained and varnished wood. You may have this in your home if it’s old enough, does the paint chip easily and reveal dark wood underneath? More than likely you have varnish or stained wood and painted over without the proper preparation. As you can see by the following picture it looked a bit of a mess.

The paint hadn’t adhered to the varnish underneath and simply flacked off, as you can see by the following quick video it wasn’t too much of a job to scrape the paint off due to lack of preparation when the varnish was painted over.

The following image shows the paint removed and prepared ready for the first coat of primer.

Continue reading Painting over varnished wood

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 Brookes workwear

Dressed for the cold weather

In this cold weather a good jacket is essential, I recently had a Result jacket from Brookes delivered. The jacket and a pair of work trousers arrived next day which was good, as reliable delivery for any work equipment is a must. With all the snow that’s on the ground at the moment it’s nice to have a warm jacket and that’s certainly what you get with this 3 in 1 Result R68 jacket. The waterproof and windproof jacket has well made both outer and inner parts, the outer jacket incorporates Scotchlite reflective material.

Work Wear

As a decorator I wear overalls most of the time, the trousers or shorts (in the summer) I wear under these need to be well fitting and sturdy. It is also important to be smart and presentable, when doing estimates onsite it is always good to remember you are entering someone’s home or office.

The Dickies Redhawk knee pad trousers from brookes workwear that I have in Black are a good fit and true to the sizing given online. They have all the pockets you would expect and need from this style of cargo pant trouser, plus they have knee pad pouches for if you require padding. They are a reasonable price work trouser and look smart enough to wear for all aspects of my working day, from hands on painting and decorating to meeting with clients and suppliers.