[Closed] DIY - Decorating tools

Buy good paint.
Take time with your prep.

Paint the walls first:
Use a roller on a pole,
Make sure the 1st coat is good, or you'll end up doing it three times.
Don't worry about getting it on the woodwork!

Paint the woodwork, use a brush to "cut in" up to the painted wall.
Don't worry if it's not perfect, no-one will notice.

APF

Unless you need to remove serious amounts of paint I just smooth / key the woodwork by hand with sand paper. Yes the straight .ine is down to a steady hand. Masking tape etc. Is a faff and can pull paint off. Personally I'd do the walls firts then the woodwork. I've just swapped over years of woodwork followed by walls, the other way around seems to give a neater line.

without seeing what woodwork you're sanding its difficult to suggest what kind of sander you'd want. If you're sanding one thing to check is how old the paint is - the UK was very late in banning lead in paint (1992). Lead had mostly fallen out of use by the 80's for DIY use but some professional decorators products persisted and pre-manufactured units (like windows and doors) were lead primed up until the ban. So get a lead testing kit first if its an older house and you want to get busy sanding. The area you test scratch the paint all the way back to the wood as the oldest layers are the most likely culprits.

You'd only really need a sander if you were having to take all the paint off - unless the paint is rough or loose then just a rub down to key the surface is all you really need - a sander would be OTT and either dig in and ruin the surface of wood work, or flatten and round off and detailing and profiles.

For your decorating bits and pieces Screwfix is cheap, and Toolstation even cheaper if there's one close. Stay away from the DIY 1½" rollers and get 1¾" stuff (cage and rollers). Life will be much simpler that way.

On the other hand i do ceiling and woodwork then walls last. Cut in by hand to ceiling and mask the woodwork, remove masking while paint still wet. Roller rest of the wall with a pole. Second coat on the wall all cut in by hand to the fresh line and iron out any bits not quite right.

Good quality paint, sleeves, and paint brushes (with the correct bristle type for the paint) make all the difference.

I'm not very good at DIY

Pay someone to do it.

^ What he said, every day of the week.

Pay some one else IF you can afford it. I was quoted around £1,000 to do stairs, top and bottom halls and the gloss work!

Don't use own brand paint - it's a false economy - stick with Dulux.
Paint the walls the same colour they are already - you'll probably get away with one coat. Alternatively consider painting the walls white - no cutting in problems. Invest in a proper step up - better than a wobbly chair. Take your time over it - that way it won't get on top of you.

Take your time over it - that way it won't get on top of you.

Equally, don't underestimate how long it will take. I finally got round to doing my dining room + hall this spring, took far, far longer than I expected. It was, however, pretty easy.

And +100 on getting decent rollers, I foolishly bought one of those kits that supposedly include everything you need at a bargain price, and it was crap.

stick with Dulux

Or go to a trade centre and get Johnstone's. Dulux is often just as crap as the own-brand stuff (unless you buy the trade stuff). Any trade paint is much more expensive than in DIY stores but you won't need as many coats so it usually works out no more expensive and less stress for you.

And avoid buying the 'Once' type stuff – over-priced crap.

We've recently finished decorating a house and echo the comments above about using the right paint.

We had some fresh plaster to do, so used cheap own brand stuff watered down with water. We then used better quality paints for the final coats.

If you use cheap paint you'll need to give walls/ceilings multiple coats...especially if the wall is not white to start with.

I had a lot of plaster repairs to do so used Easyfill for this (it gets easier with practice). For sanding that down I had a Makita random orbit sander. I've also got a black and decker sander, but I found that the fine dust meant that the sandpaper stopped sticking to the Velcro pad. The Makita sander has clips so it doesn't rely on Velcro.

Painting a house takes forever...paying a professional is expensive due to the time spent. Since we finished someone told me you can get someone to spray paint the house which is cheaper as it's quicker...haven't really looked into it though, other than someone in the pub telling me about it.

Another tip...don't leave masking tape for ages, it'll take paint off when you remove it.

Also, if you do need to do lots of sanding of Easyfill...get a good mask, the dust gets everywhere,

Don't use own brand paint - it's a false economy - stick with Dulux.

I found that Leyland trade matt gave much, much better coverage than Dulux supermatt on new plaster. So much so that two coats was sufficient rather than the usual three.

As for masking tape - use the "low tack" stuff - much easier to remove without damaging paint.

+1 on leyland trade being decent (see screwfix recommendation above).

Finding their water based gloss + undercoat/primer to be decent too, though you have to work fairly quick with it.

Only done a couple of rooms so far, but I prefer woodwork first, as it's easier to wipe spilt/drips of emulsion off gloss than vice-versa.

I found that Leyland trade matt gave much, much better coverage

Leyland paint and decent in the same sentence rofl whatever next . Seriously pay a pro , most of my work is putting right people's mishaps .

Leyland paint and decent in the same sentence rofl whatever next . Seriously pay a pro , most of my work is putting right people's mishaps .

I tried Leyland paint on a pro's recommendation. He was right.

Leyland paint and decent in the same sentence rofl whatever next . Seriously pay a pro , most of my work is putting right people's mishaps .

Depends on if you can afford a pro or get one to turn up, also some of the 'pro' work I have seen in a new house recently could be improved by giving a toddler a paintbrush and a can of redbull.

I normally cut in but faced with a massive amount of painting at the end of last year, I tried out Frog Tape (available from B&Q) and it was marvellous. Didn't lift off the paint it was stuck to and completely eliminated the bleed through I'd always got with normal maskers.

By the way, how dangerous is lead paint, I think I sanded quite a lot on the landing before realising. Will I die next week?

you'll want a couple of ladders and a plank if you are doing the stairwell

halls are a pain, too much woodwork

1) tradecentre
2) its all in the prep work
3) frog tape. if you go down the masking tape route, DONT use masking tape (unless you use the 'anti-bleed' technique - which is time consuming).