Painting advice for DIY noob

[DazQ87]

Hi guys,

I'm tearing my hair out right now, I'm trying to redecorate my hallway and stairway, but I'm having serious trouble with the skirting, the wife picked a wipeable silk dark red paint for the skirting, but after spending 2 days applying it it's already got some scratches on it where the dogs have caught their claws on it and its started peeling away in quite large chunks on those areas.

The skirting underneath is white with a pretty shiny finish.

Should I have sanded the skirting before painting? Is there some kind of varnish or lacquer I should be putting over the top to protect it? I tried going for more coats, but it just peels away in thicker chunks

It's only really a problem by the front door as thats were the dogs lay, they can't get to any of the paintwork up the stairs or upstairs hallway because we shut them down with a stair gate.

 

[Maccapacca]

Yes you should have prepared the skirting first. At least key up the existing gloss or satin that's if there's only one decent coat, if there's decades of coats you should sand it back to sharpen the profile and sand out the dinks and dents and fill where needed with two pack filler.

 

[bremen1874]

Ceilings and woodwork should be white. It keeps life simple.

 

[DazQ87]

Ceilings and woodwork should be white. It keeps life simple.

I think you might be right . Unfortunately I just kind of let the wife pick the colours with the attitude of "I'm sure this will be fine", at this point I'm committed as going round and removing the paint from all the other areas of the stairway and upstairs hallway to match it up would be even more work.

I think I've totally messed this up, if I sand down and re-paint the areas I'm most worried about am I still going to have this same problem? It feels like dog claws are harder than silk paint and therefor it's still going to scratch off even if prepped properly.

I've seen some suggestions that a water based varnish might help me out, if anybody has used any before?

 

[Maccapacca]

if I sand down and re-paint the areas I'm most worried about am I still going to have this same problem?

Not if you prepare properly and use the right paint.

What paint did you use? What was it? oil based?

 

[bremen1874]

If the paint was properly stuck it wouldn't be scratching easily. If you prepare the surface properly (sanding and degreasing) you should be in a much better position.

 

[norm]

Primer it with Zinnser Bullseye 123 to get good adhesion. Then you'll want to undercoat that, then paint your top coat.

There's a reason why I hate painting.

 

[DazQ87]

Yeah I think I'm going to have to start again, I'm going to borrow a power sander from my brother in law and just remove everything I've done so far on the skirting. Not what I wanted to be doing but I won't be happy unless it's done right.

I feel pretty stupid right now, I probably should have realized this would happen. Not really any excuses but all the other rooms we've redecorated we just left the skirting white and obviously didn't run into this issue.

I'm going to have to buy more paint, do I need to get a primer and/or varnish for this as well, of will a good sanding and prep mean I don't need anything else?

 

[IvanDobskey]

I feel your pain. I'm painting skirting, doors and frames at the moment and it's a ballache

I have stuck to white though, much simpler and not obvious when scratched.

 

[bremen1874]

I'm going to have to buy more paint, do I need to get a primer and/or varnish for this as well, of will a good sanding and prep mean I don't need anything else?

The paint can should have preparation instructions on it.

 

[DazQ87]

My first port of call is going to be to get the sander, then just take everything back, then convince the missus we should just go for white again and go and buy some tough white skirting paint and do it in that.

 

[fobose]

Someone glossed over a varnished banister in my last house. I touched the gloss with 120 grit sand paper and chucks of gloss flaked off. I ended up sanding it back down to bare wood almost! Recently done my new place and a light 120 grit sand worked a treat.

Maybe this is a good time to go back to white if you don't like the red too? Blessing in disguise. My mother and father in law always had Black gloss skirting and door frames. It actually looked really good with their white walls. You could try a flat filling knife to scrap most of the gloss off rather than sanding, then sand once most of the red gloss is off!

Power sander wise, I have a bosch psm 100 sander which has a triangle shaped front, ideal for getting in the corners (amazon do cheap replacement pads for it which work brilliant).

 

[Haggisman]

As above. gloss is "non-stick" by design (so it's easier to clean), you need to give the new paint something to hold on to, e.g. sanding to a rougher surface

 

[JBuk]

Yeah I think I'm going to have to start again, I'm going to borrow a power sander from my brother in law and just remove everything I've done so far on the skirting. Not what I wanted to be doing but I won't be happy unless it's done right.

I feel pretty stupid right now, I probably should have realized this would happen. Not really any excuses but all the other rooms we've redecorated we just left the skirting white and obviously didn't run into this issue.

I'm going to have to buy more paint, do I need to get a primer and/or varnish for this as well, of will a good sanding and prep mean I don't need anything else?

It depends on the type of paint you wish to apply, generally water based paints will not adhere to old oil based paint very well, in that instance you would need a primer that will stick to the old oil based coat and let the new water based adhere to that else strip everything bare and start fresh

oil based to oil based is usually ok if you lightly sand the surface and give it a good wash down

 

[Hedge]

A heat gun would be better than trying to sand paint off.

 

[pp111]

It depends on the type of paint you wish to apply, generally water based paints will not adhere to old oil based paint very well, in that instance you would need a primer that will stick to the old oil based coat and let the new water based adhere to that else strip everything bare and start fresh

oil based to oil based is usually ok if you lightly sand the surface and give it a good wash down

This. You can also use advanced shellac based undercoats to stick to tricky surfaces which act a as a good undercoat even for water based topcoats.

Using a varnish can be useful for changing the finish of a paint ( from say matt to gloss ) or toughening up a delicate paint like an emulsion. You can paint doors and skirting with an emulsion as long as you top it off with a coat of varnish. You might do that say if you want your radiators to exactly match your walls. The stuff you need is decorators varnish. It's sold in plastic bottle by the litre abd one litre goes a very long way. It's white in colour but dries clear. Its available in a silk finish. But having said that your main problem seems to be that your paint is not sticking. wouldnt hurt to give it a coat of varnish at the end though.

 

[DazQ87]

Thanks for the advice guys, I've borrowed a power sander but I need to run out and grab some more pads tomorrow. I managed to scrape off about 90% of the paint using a combination of some soft plastic car trim pullers, a filling knife and my fingernails.

I had a quick go with the power sander, I used a fairly coarse grade pad and started sanding down untill there was no glossy/shiny finish left, after brushing and vacuuming the dust away I've put some paint down in a small area to see how its set in the morning. I'm going to give the dark red one more attempt, if this fails i'm going to go back to white I think.

I've also ordered a bottle of polyvine Heavy duty varnish, which is apparently great for use on interior painted wood and was recommended by a work colleague, which I'm hoping I can use to toughen it up afterwards.

The only pulse side to this is that I've got a month untill the carpet fitters turn up to replace the carpet with wood effect lino, so I can be very carefree about getting paint on the floor or messing it up more than it already is.

 

[Maundie]

A heat gun would be better than trying to sand paint off.

This, remove all the old stuff back to bare wood, sand after that and then give a good wipe over with some thinners or such to get rid of any possible oily residue, build back up with undercoat and gloss, I wouldn't have any other colour than white as my ex missus wanted dark blue in one of the bedrooms and it looked ok but never as 'clean' as white.

 

[bremen1874]

If the existing paint work is bad enough to need sanding back to bare wood I’d rip it off and replace it.