Tools you should have in your toolbox

The following is a basic list of tools you should consider having in your decorating toolbox, you may need more than those listed but these are really the twelve essentials to get you started. This list doesn’t include sundries such as sandpaper.

Dustsheet, heavy and light

Dustsheets are needed to cover over furniture and flooring, they can be heavy weight or lightweight or even plastic disposable ones depending on the job they are required for.

Scrapers

You may find having more than one scraper of use, a thin bladed one for things like opening cracks and a wider one for filling cracks, scraping walls and ceilings and removing wallpaper.

Screwdriver

A selection of screwdrivers would be useful for removing things such as shelves, door furniture and electrical items* such as wall lights, ceiling lights, switches and sockets.

Sharp knife

This can be used to open tubes of decorators caulk, packets of filler and wallpaper paste and for cutting wallpaper, or even to sharpen your pencil !!

Continue reading 12 essential tools for your DIY decorating toolbox

Wallpapering around a window or door reveal

One of the things that puts people off from wallpapering is they are unsure how to tackle certain area’s. One of these is a window or door reveal.

It isn’t as daunting as it may first appear and I will try to explain how to do it below.

Where and how to start with the wallpaper

One of the first things I do, is measure using a roll of wallpaper to work out where the sheet will come at the reveal, in other words I see if the paper goes around the reveal and not stop on the external corner, this is bad! You may have to adjust where you start hanging the wallpaper or even start from another starting point, such as the other corner of the wall.

Once you have worked this out and made a plumb line on the wall you can start to hang the wallpaper. Hang the first sheet making sure you follow the plumb line to ensure it is straight and upright.

Now take the next sheet and match the pattern, if the wallpaper has one, and hang that sheet, then keep going until you reach the reveal.

Continue reading How to wallpaper around a window or door reveal

VOC in 2011

Many of you may of heard about VOC’s but are unaware what they are and what it all means.

VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound, what that you may ask, VOC’s are solvents within solvent-based paints such as gloss, undercoat and varnishes. These solvents evaporate into the atmosphere as the paint dries. You can tell how high the VOC’s are in a tin of paint normally by the distinctive smell you get off from them, gloss has a high VOC content where as emulsion has a low VOC content.
If you look at the side of the paint tin it will have a symbol and also some writing about the VOC content in the tin.
VOC’s contribute to environmental air pollution and in turn damage the ozone layer.

In the past year there has been a lot of news in the press about paint being ‘VOC Compliant’. From the 1st of January 2011 the sale of non-compliant products will be forbidden.

So can I still buy and use non-compliant paint

As from January 2011 you are unable to buy non-compliant paints, as it is now illegal to sell them. If you have older paint, say in the garage or shed, you are still allowed to use them. It maybe worth thinking about if you will need more paint than what you already have as the new VOC compliant paint may differ slightly to the older paints you have.

Search online for more information about VOC’s and the current law.

Useful links

Some related links:

• Dulux
• Crown Paints
• ICI Paints
• Wikipedia – Volatile_organic_compound
• British Coatings Federation