Painting - one disaster already, trying to avoid repeat

zenbuffy

Hi,

So, to cut a long story short, I've recently bought a house. Great price, because the previous owners didn't love it well, and it's in need of some serious redecoration. One thing the previous owners must have loved was the colour red - I think every wall in the house has been red at one point!

The room that will be my master bedroom has three very red walls, and as I'm planning to paint them a much more neutral and paler colour, it was recommended to me that I blank them out with a coat or two of white paint before painting my neutral, which I did.

The white paint (white silk emulsion) went on fine, and the two coats seemed to do the job in blanking out the red, but disaster struck when I painted my Dulux Vinyl Matt over the white - the paint blistered up like my wall had a serious case of acne, and it cracked all over (crazed?). So a bit of googling has told me that this was probably because, in all of my innocence, I bought the wrong white paint, and that's what caused the matt to crack (because it was a silk emulsion).

Now, we were left with two options - one: strip the paper on the walls, try to hang lining paper, and then paint that, or two: attempt to remove the paint and see what we were left with. We decided to see about removing the paint, do a test spot, and decide then. After scrubbing the wall with a bit of sugar soap (and not really scrubbing that hard, actually), we've found that not only has the matt come off, but also, the white emulsion has come off right down to the red. Would I be right in thinking then that the white obviously didn't adhere that well to the red, and wouldn't provide a good base even if I'd put silk over it instead of matt?

If we scrub all the matt (about 1/3 of the room) and the white (all of the room) off, we'll be back to the red paint again. I didn't think this red was silk, I didn't think it had a sheen, but the ease at which the white paint seemed to scrub off is making me doubt myself. If we can get back to this red layer, though, and the walls are still in decent condition, I don't want to make the same mistake again. Is there some manner of primer or undercoat I can put on which will prep the surface to take a matt or silk, no matter what kind of paint the red paint was?

Markcheese

If you think the red is silk just give it a light rub with sandpaper, Give the red a clean with sugar soap... Then cover with high opacity White ... Might take 2 coats ..... Then either leave it White or paint away ...

zenbuffy

Without meaning to sound too silly - what kind of white? Like Vinyl Matt/Silk white, white emulsion, etc?

Truth be told, my dad died a bit earlier this year, and he would have known exactly what to do, so that's contributing a bit to my feeling of utter confusion and lost whenever I'm wandering around the paint aisles, so if I have a pretty exact idea of what I need, I'm hoping to avoid any more upset (at least for this room!).

jack of all

This is what I'd do: remove as much of the flaking paint as possible, scrapping or sanding down to get back to a sound surface. I always wash down walls with sugar soap and rinse off with clean water- especially in kitchens, bathrooms or rooms that have an open fire. When thoroughly dry spot prime any flakey or bare spots with an alkali resisting primer. Roll the lot with a white matt emulsion to obliterate the red colour. I don't like soft sheen or silk finishes and they make a poor base for subsequent matt emulsions, if adhesion is a problem rub down very lightly with an abrasive sponge block. If there any problem areas like water stains or greasy patches use a good spot primer/ stain blocker- I've used Zinnser BIN recently and found it good although it can be tricky to use as it dries so quickly (it has a meths base). As with every painting job it all about the preparation.

zenbuffy

Thanks for the advice. There don't seem to be any particular trouble spots (wet patches or anything like that). I did sugar soap the walls prior to painting, but I didn't sand them, so I will make sure to do so this time.

It's such a shame, other rooms I've painted have come up lovely, but I've just made a mess of this one! Hopefully I'll be able to recover it

Juwwi

Did you paint a few coats of the silk and then a coat of matt paint on in the same day by any chance.

hesker

Can't offer any solution for you but if it helps I'm in the same boat.

I've considered stripping back and sanding the red off but that would leave a very flat (too smooth) finish on the plaster. I like the natural finish you get after plastering which is a light beaded finish.

zenbuffy

robbie1977 wrote: »

Did you paint a few coats of the silk and then a coat of matt paint on in the same day by any chance.

No, there was more than a day in between painting the silk coats and the matt going on top. I just didn't know about silk/matt interactions

irelandspurs

Had there been wallpaper on the walls before painting them?

irelandspurs

zenbuffy wrote: »

No, there was more than a day in between painting the silk coats and the matt going on top. I just didn't know about silk/matt interactions

silk/matt interaction would not cause that unless the coats were still damp,it sounds like a reaction to the wall you painted onto ie,dust /dirt on the wall or if the wall had been papered at one stage and stripped and painted the perhaps the paste may not have been washed off properly by previous owners and just painted over.

michael999999

zenbuffy wrote: »

No, there was more than a day in between painting the silk coats and the matt going on top. I just didn't know about silk/matt interactions

It sounds like the red you painted over may have been gloss.

There should be no reaction painting matt over silk or vice versa.