Home DIY

I've been using it for 20 years. Must have used 100's of litres. It's pretty much an industry standard. You need to stir it before you pour it into the paint kettle and if you have a lot in the kettle stir it occasionally. Otherwise you spend the first half of the tin wondering why it doesn't cover and the second half building up your forearms. It's not a very high opacity paint so I often paint a higher opacity undercoat on top of it. It drys very quickly so you can get on with the job.

I usually denib the surface with a flexible sanding pad (180 grit) before painting and between the first 2 coats.

Make sure you paint in a good light, skirting boards are terrible for curtaining. Mask the floor and walls it's much quicker in the end than cutting in (Frog tape is very good) and use 2 brushes if you have detailing in the skirting, one for the flats and one for the details.

Thanks - useful info! Am painting slightly yellowed old gloss with this and then white satin water based wood paint. Was aiming for 1 coat Bullseye123 then 2 coats satin. Should be enough? Will sand as you advise. What is curtaining? Have Frog tape already as son wants a design painted on the walls.

Curtaining is where the paint doesn't dry quickly enough to dry flat so it forms long wide drips before setting. Don't load the paint on too heavily, especially where the gloss underneath won't absorb much moisture. You're better off doing 2 thin coats that dry quickly and will cover all the surface.

You can get away with 1 undercoat and 2 top coats but it's actually easier to do 1 primer, 1 tinted undercoat and 1 top coat. The top coat is so quick to do it's worth doing 2 anyway. I'm quite fussy so I normally stick to 4 coats. The cost of a tinted undercoat is an issue for most diy jobs too.

It's an l shaped bank. So probably 2?
Medium density. Piping would be nice.

Most important is child resistance.

I'm hard of reading:
Does this mean, rub the skirting down, slap a coat of the magic bullseye, then 2 coats dulux satin or similar?

Was recommending something between the bullseye and the top coat but ymmv.

For skirting and architrave with water-based paint, I've found that I get the smoothest finish if I first use a brush (strokes in one direction) to get into the details/grooves, and then roll over with a foam mini roller. May seem a bit excessive, but the results are good.

Hmm, I haven't opened the time yet but was expecting the Bullseye to be white (ish)? ... I will try just the one coat + 2 coats, it is for a 5yr olds bedroom in a 100yr old house, so should be good enough. Will report back!

Must buy moar things ...

I'm not a fan of rolled woodwork but I understand some people prefer it. Just don't like the texture. On lining paper I usually roll it with a 6" roller and brush it out in one direction! You can do the same with woodwork but I've only ever done that to fire doors. I guess I've just got faster with a brush after so many years.

For the last couple of years I've been using something called a Wombat, it's a paint kettle with some extra features. Well worth it if you do a lot of painting.

You'll be fine. I have to be fussy because some of my clients are.

The task begins. Phase 1 done. Room empty, polyfilla done, floorboards numbered.

The plan: lift boards, reduce noisy heating pipes with felt tape, insulate pipes while I'm under there. Electrician fitting additional double wall socket with USB and network point (connecting to router downstairs under landing floor + extensive electrical works elsewhere). Redecorate, new carpet, new bed, move son back in.

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Only the ones needed to follow the pipes. Conveniently when the previous owners did the extension, they cut boards, so it will be a stretch long ways and then the smaller cut sections across (a bunch were never actually screwed back down properly anyway). If I need to cut any more I can work that out. Will need to replace 2 lengths of board and the chipboard they put down over the 'hearth' as it is not thick enough, otherwise should be ok.

Might want to caulk any gaps along the tops of the skirting boards if there are any.

Yay! Part of my novice plan... got the required stuff, had a dispenser. Was first going to sugar soap skirting/doors once electrician is done chasing the wires in, then undercoat walls/skirting before caulking gaps. Have seen varying preferences for decorating, start from top, skirting first, skirting last ...

Up to you how you prefer doing it. You may find that some paints don't like some caulks. For that reason, I caulk first. I've used primer over caulk where the particular paint has been fussy (some will craze). Ignore the 1hr or whatever it says on the tube for drying as your water-based paints will lift it off unless you let it properly set.

Hmmmmm ... thanks!

Does anyone have any tips for getting this drain inspection cover up? I get the impression it hasn't been opened ever. There appear to be two screw heads in two corners but one is a bit mangled - do I just need to get these screws out then lift it?

Great, thanks. I've done some crud scraping round the edges with a stanley knife but will get to work on the rest of it.

some road and a piece of wood may help

I can't work out if 'some road' is a typo or something I'm not familiar with?

Underway ... electrician on lunch break so I took up boards and ran the heating. Have identified where the creaking is coming from. Will work on that tomorrow - electrician is chasing everywhere so it's a bit dusty in there.

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The wife and I are trying get some brass drawer pulls for a wardrobe and a chest of drawers that we've painted.
Ordered a couple of samples from eBay and picked the one we liked. All 12 turned up today and 11 have quite bad markings/pitting. Obviously they are going back.
We paid £5.50 per handle, and looking around the price jumps very quickly to £16+.
Anyone know of anything similar for not stupid money? We need 12.

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If you are looking for decent brass hardware you'll need to pay stupid money. I've been fitting £75 catches to windows here and there because the client can't deal with the cheaper options. In short, sorry can't recommend anything other than sucking it up for the quality stuff if you can bear it.

Could do with some advice.

I have a roofer coming over. I’m at work and my other half is getting prang about being scammed.

We had a survey when we bought the place that raised some queries over the roof. We paid a roofer £50 to assess it, with that £50 to be discounted if we went through with any works.

He should be coming to repoint the lead flashing around the chimney stacks (£250-£50 = £200)

Our survey said:

CHIMNEY STACKS:

Chimney stacks The property has one brick chimney stack. The junction between the stack and the roof coverings is sealed with lead flashings. The stack appears in satisfactory condition but pointing is a little weathered in places. Chimney stacks, fillets and flashings are very exposed and should be regularly inspected and maintained in good condition. There is an open joint where the flashing is chased into the brickwork and this should be re-pointed.

Condition Rating 2.

ROOF COVERINGS:

The roof is covered with plain clay tiles. The roof is lined internally with building paper. The roof coverings appear in acceptable condition for their age. The coverings should be regularly inspected and maintained in good condition as any minor disrepair could lead to significant leakage and decay. A few items were noted including for example the following:-
The bedding mortar under the hip tiles has cracked and is missing in places. The roof is covered in harmful moss.

Condition Rating 2.

The Roofer said:

Roof is in VGC but noted the following:

1. Lead flashings around chimney stack need repointing.
   
2. Moss needs to be cleaned.
   
3. Splits in roofing felt – but this isn’t a problem.
   

My understanding of what he needs to do is:

• go on the roof
  
• re-check the condition
  
• clean area
  
• use something (either mortar/similar) to re-point where the lead flashing meets the roof and meets the chimney.
  
  

This all seems straight forward and uncomplicated so there shouldn't be any risk of him fucking it up - other than possibly breaking tiles.

The obvious place for him to scam us/add extra seem to me to be:

1. adding materials - which I now realise haven't yet been mentioned.
   
2. saying that there are extra broken tiles, fixing, then charging.
   
3. Saying we need to re-point the hips as per the original survey.
   
   

I realise this all sounds a bit neg. But he's annoyed Mrs. Hugo7 and I'm now being quizzed on what he's actually going to do and how we know it's been done.

Afternoon all

Apologies if this is a daft question, I've only owned a place for the last three months and I'm trying to get my head around it. Walls in my place are 1920s masonry and I want to sort out two problems with them:

a) the wall quality is crap - if I paint it I can see loads of divots and gaps in it - so I assume it needs plastering before painting?
b) there's no space to run electric / telecoms cables - all the cables are tacked on to the wall with plastic runnings and it looks ugly as hell

What's the best way of making this kind of space look clean? I don't think I have the budget to chase electric cables into the wall, but I quite like the industrial look so I'd be fine with that sort of galvanised metal cable trunking running down the walls. Just not sure where to begin tbh.