# 11 of 101 tips on house painting and decorating - building maintenance - Painting over your old wallpaper

Here are a a few more tips on house painting and decorating, to help with your home renovations projects.

You leafed through a few magazines and got inspired with some great interior design ideas and fantastic paint colours. You'd like to freshen up a room in your house, which has this super ugly wallpaper on the walls. Ok... so you've tried removing some of the ugly wallpaper and you've realised what a mammoth task it actually is (painting and decorating is not as easy as it looks!).

Now you're thinking........lets paint over it instead!

Before you get your house painting gear out, let's first check the state of the wall paper. You will have to make sure the wall paper is glued down well enough to paint over. Well...... we can fairly safely assume its well glued down, since you gave up on the wallpaper removal job. Either that, or you want to keep the painting and decorating to a minimum effort.

If the wallpaper is lifting away from the wall anywhere, then now is the time to glue it back down with some PVA or wallpaper glue. If it keeps curling away from the wall, you may need to tape or staple it down temporarily until the glue dries.

Next you need to roll the area with pigmented sealer to make sure you paper doesn't lift during painting and decorating. If there is already a coat of paint on the wallpaper, you can skip ithis step.
Apply the pigmented sealer. If the paper bubbles, don't panic straight away. Just wait untill the paper is dry, as often these bubbles go away by themselves. If there are lots of bubbles and they don't go away when dry,  I'm afraid you will just have to give up and strip the paper off the wall before painting and decorating. Or give us a call at Banks Building Maintenance to get a free quote on doing the painting and decorating for you. We have good house painter on the books.

Tip: Yes you should use the oil based sealer.

Next, plaster repair any holes or scratches you want to hide. This may not be easy due to textured paper, but get creative, you can hide lots under and good painting and decorating job. In your house painting kit you should have a few textured rollers to roll over fresh repairs to add texture.

If the wall is really bad you may consider a skim coat of plaster over the whole wall. I suggest you leave this up to your professional plasterer. Please give us a call at Banks Building Maintenance for a free quote.

Finally use a low sheen washable paint like Dulux Wash n Wear or Resene Space Coatto paint your wall.

Remember don't be too critical of your finished work. You will always see any tiny fault, because you are up close and personal with your latest house painting efforts.

Happy house painting
Andre

How to fix small cracks in plaster walls: tips on Plastering and Painting

Repairing Gib Board Walls

In my previous blogs I’ve given a few tips on painting and decorating. But before you paint a room, you better make sure the walls are in good condition. Paint won’t hide any cracks or dips and dents; on the contrary, paint is far more likely to highlight any flaws.

To clarify, in this blog I’m talking about repairing walls lined with Gib board. Normally these walls have timber frames. These are the most common interior walls found in New Zealand houses.

Plaster walls usually have cracks due to the house "settling" in its foundation, or are damaged where furniture or doors have struck the plaster. At first, repairing plaster damage seems like a daunting task. But take your time to plaster and paint properly, and you will get solid, long-lasting results. If it still seems a bit daunting after reading the below, call me at Banks Building Maintenance.

Fixing small cracks in a plaster wall

Note that in today’s blog I will focus on fixing small cracks in a plaster wall. For large cracks which run through the entire Gib board (so the board is basically cracked right through, this usually happens where boards are joined) a more extensive repair is required. I’ll write more on fixing larger cracks and holes in another blog. Can’t wait? Call me for a quote to plaster and paint it for you.

Tip: Safety first, so make sure you are wearing a dust mask, eye protection and work gloves. Keep the area where you are working well ventilated. If you are repairing a larger crack, you might also want to move furniture away and put down drop-sheets to protect from dust.

Before you start your plaster and painting project, clean the area with Sugar Soap. This will take all the fat and grease of the wall, which will help the repair products stick a lot better. Selleys sells a great product for this purpose, called Selleys Liquid Sugar Soap. Wait for wall to dry thoroughly. 

First make sure the crack is dry. Then clean the crack, using a scraper to rake out any loose material. Remove dust from around the crack, you can use a vacuum cleaner for this. Loose dust can prevent your new plaster or filler from bonding with the existing plaster.

Ideally the crack is at least 1-2mm wide, which helps to make sure that the filler gets into the crack. With a very fine crack, open it a bit further if necessary, using a utility knife.    

Using a putty knife, fill the crack slowly with filler. Rigid fillers are designed for filling gaps, cracks or holes in a solid surface where a smooth and even finish is required, for example repairing walls and ceilings.

Selleys sells a good product which you can use for this: Selleys Spakfilla Squeeze & Scrape. Make sure that the product gets into the crack. You will only need to use one application.

Wait 30 minutes for the filler to dry (or longer, if the crack is deeper than 2mm), and then sand the area until it is smooth and level. 

Clean any dust or filler particles away, and then you’re ready to paint. If you’re using water-based paints, you can apply the paint straight away. If you are using oil-based paints you should wait for 24 hours before painting.

Tip to achieve a high quality finish: After repairing the cracks, apply sealer/primer before painting your 2 topcoats of coloured paint. You can use a product like Resene Broadwall 3 in 1 or Resene Broadwall Surface Prep& Seal. These products are easy to sand and help to smooth any minor surface irregularities. This will help you to achieve a professional looking finish. 

Lack the time to repair your walls? Call Banks Building Maintenance.

If the job is too large for you to fix, or you simply lack the time, please give Banks Building Maintenance a call to help you with your plastering and painting project.

Cheers,  Andre