Home DIY

Your door looks really unhappy.

I dont know about that, but every time im in the merchants im like how is this this much. Its wild

Hah, it really does.

Trying to build up an itinerary of the things I need to do to get these old sashes ready for primer and paint.

Would like to confirm with the hive mind before I start line-by-lining the work and buying the materials.

1. Red. For the join between the wooden cill and the masonry, remove the existing perished putty and sealant , clean up the surfaces, then seal with burnt sand mastic

2. Orange. Where the join between the render and the wooden sash box has fucked itself, remove the failed render then fill again with burnt sand mastic

3. Green. Where the mitre join on the window frames has a gap / crack in it, fill with putty

1 Attachment

Any roofer recommendations out Brockley way (for a friend)?

We used b and q to match bathroom paint previously and weren’t very impressed with it. Does anyone have any recommendations of anyone better?

It's not really down to the shop as it's all the same equipment that pretty much every place uses. Some colours will be matched more accurately than others, as far as I'm aware it's all down to the base and tints that are available depending on your chosen paint manufacturer (I'm not an expert so could be wrong about this). The place I normally use, an independent local decorator supply shop, always gives me a score to indicate how close the paint match will be.

FWIW the place I use is called Amersham Decorators Centre (see if you can guess where it is)

Take your pick, B&Q own brand is probably the worst. Johnstons or Leyland Trade are decent options in the budget price range. Dulux Diamond Trade for hallways or anything you might want to wash.

Try to get a trade version of whatever brand you choose as they have less water and more solids in. F&B/Little Green etc. emulsions are not trade paints and very often take 3 coats to get full coverage. The fancy brands use higher quality 'fillers' and pigments.

Mylands is one of my current favourites for fancy paint.

“Mylands is one of my current favourites for fancy paint.”

i tried to paint my kitchen with it and while i’m no expert i know how to apply and lay off to get a decent finish with no streaks but the paint was drying so fast i couldn’t get a decent finish and it was very patchy and the last roller direction was clearly visible even if i did the flick up/down and decreasing the pressure as you roll off the wall. only way i could work was with a brush and dithering the direction randomly and working in small areas at a time, even then you are painting next to a dry edge that you covered 2 mins previous.

in the shop they said i needed to add a product called flositrol to retard the drying which is only available in big tins and makes the already expensive paint even more ridiculous.

will never buy that shit again.

i’ll stick to little green, people say it’s not as good as trade paint but i haven’t found anything that gets a really nice flat mat finish and the times i have tried cheaper paint matched to sourdough crust/audi bootliner grey/waitrose green colours they alway have shiny patches and not totally flat.

I use a lot of Little Green, their Absolute Matt doesn't like to be touched by anything, even rubbing it with a silk cloth makes it shiny.

It's one area in life where I am qualified to say I'm an expert and I've painted many litres of both Little Green and Mylands without noticing any distinct difference between the way they handle.

The technique you ended up using, rolling small areas and brushing out the texture is standard practice for me when I'm using very matt emulsions, i.e. lots of solids. Mylands do have a particularly heavy base but the LG Absolute still needs to be handled the same way. I use a small roller in a hand held paint pot with a brush held in it by magnets for these types of paint. In fairness you need to be able to paint pretty fast to avoid dry edges and I have over 30 years professional experience so maybe that plays a role.

If you didn't wash the walls with sugar soap first you should definitely try that. I find it helps with any type of further paint application. You could also have added 10% water instead of floetrol. I do have a tub of floetrol handy at all times, especially in the summer as it can make a big difference to how easy a day you are having when it's hot and dry.

they alway have shiny patches and not totally flat

Some people are sensitive to this, other never notice. I agree a lot of paints have issues with coverage but you need to look at prep and flatness of walls compared to roller size as well. Also roller pile length which helps if the walls are not flat.

With a very small roller a lot of these problems go away then brush out with a 4" brush if you don't want roller 'eggshell'.

Painted the gate metallic green… probs gonna get it blasted and powdercoated. Bit of a waste of an hour.

1 Attachment

Looks good from here and colour is great! taking it to powder coat will take much longer!

I send stuff pretty regularly so timing isn’t such an issue. Just spent the whole time thinking about how much better the finish could be.

I’m assuming the texture is because hammerite and not rust pitting?

i’m not going to tell you that you are wrong but it wasn’t even a hot day and walls were clean, to apply with small roller and brush out to a nice finish would need 2 people getting very cosy and literally working right behind each roller stroke because the time it would take to put the roller down and pick up a brush (that somehow wasn’t starting to dry itself) was too long to be able to ‘work it’ and get a good finish as it’s too dry.
if i ever decide i have to have a Mylands colour i’ll get you to paint it :-)

as to not noticing? i’m a bit obsessive about things like that but i now realise once you are sat on the sofa you can’t really make out the area next to the door frame where you didn’t feather edge the filler very well...

Wickes colour match. Not ideal

1 Attachment

Lol

Haha! Would rep!

On the paint front, I went with the Leyland Trade 'Hardwearing', and seems decent so far.

That said, I've only mist coated areas where there was new/bare plaster - seems as though it's very thick - I was probably around 60:40 paint to water for this.

(I know I haven't cut in the edges - don't worry, it's on my backwards list)

1 Attachment

Is there a transom going above the door liner with random missing bit of wall above it?

I don’t rate the coverage of that undercoat, even one coat. What did you use?

nope! i may live to regret it, but there’ll be arcs around the door liner and them an open aperture above - plan is to have a couple of little plants or trinkets/whatnot in the gap.

edit: french doors below, not just a shelf-y gap

Interesting.

If you haven't already you may want to consider building some kid of box from ply to fix the head of the liner to. Left to its own devices a door liner will move, cup, warp etc. And make hanging a door there well........... Challenging.