Painting Wall

gaz wac

Hi

Posted this in the Home Decorating section but only got one tip, so hoping someone here will be able to add to that.....

Wonder if you can help me with a prob I had over the weekend. We moved into a new house so walls are plaster with the basic white paint. We're painting the wall red so we got some samples and tested them on the wall. Didnt like any of them so painted over them with the white. Picked a red out at weekend and painted the wall but now the other samples are sticking out like a sore thumb should I have done somthing with them before I painted over them?

Cheers

Gaz

Wertz

When you say sticking out like a sore thumb, do you mean the sample areas are more "solid" a colour of red? If so then you haven't enough paint over the white primer (ie the whole wall/room needs another coat)...if you mean that in certain lights or from angles that you can see the shape of the patch or brushstrokes/texture then read the following...

The thing with samples is that people tend to do 2 things they shouldn't with them...firstly they use the little brush included to slap the paint on the wall...often it is plonked on in one heavy coat without brushing out for the sake of seeing what the colour looks like (rather than applying 2-3 thin coats)...secondly they tend to plant it right in the centre of the first wall they see when entering a room...this is also ussually the spot that get's a lot of natual light which shows up unevenness in paintwork. Interior designers are the worst bunch for doing this and they should know better.

As for what you should do...prevention is better than cure, but you should have used a sharp blade and/or fine grade abrasive paper to take the sample patch back flush with the wall and you shouldn't have bothered touching the patch up in white either (only added another paint layer). The more and layers you put over this now, the worse it will get and the harder it'll be to get rid of...

gaz wac

Hi Wertz,

Thats excatly what I did I used the little brush it came with cos I was too lazy to use a small roller. Had a feeling I was going to have to sand them down. Thanks a million for your reply

Gaz

Wertz

Another thing that doesn't help is that the majority of sample pots only come in matt finish which unfortunately leaves more texture/brushstrokes than sheened finishes.