Novice: Painting lighter colour over darker
 

hi there

im from england
pleasure being on your site
thanks for takin the time to read this
very much appreciated.

i was wondering if you could give me tips or advice about what I am going to describe to you:


Well we recently built a new room. the walls got plastered.....
it was time to choose a colour to PAINT the walls
we decided to go for a purple colour. it turned out a bit too dark then what we anticipated.
painted it about 2 years back now.
since then ive always not liked this dark purple colour in this room.


ive noticed that there are some cracks in the walls quite a lot actually
they are hairline cracks but they are there.

my plan is to paint over this colour going from dark purple to a nice light peach colour.
ive never painted before in my life. i dont really have a clue so im looking for advice for some questions please:

1. do u think i will need more than one coat of paint?

2. what could be the disadvatages of directly painting over the walls WITHOUT filling the cracks?

3. i want to do a good job ive seen ive got lots of plug sockets here, windows, even radiators, gosh ive just remember this one mite be a bugger!!! also i got coving on the top part of the wall along with a skirting board near the floor...gosh im just wondering if its going to be worth the hassle now lol! but for all these MAJOR things i was thinking of using masking tape to cover them is this a good idea?


4. if u have any other advice for a painting novice please let me know


once again many thanks for reading this looking forward to your replies.

psd99

psd, prepare for a job. I would repair the cracks and sand before paint. I don't know of the quality of paint that you have there but wiil guess that it is similar to ours. You are looking at 2 coats of primer and 2 topcoats minimum. I cut in freehand and, if you want to practice, you should have it down pretty well by the time the job is finished.

If you decide to tape, be sure to use painters tape. Here it is color coded, blue and green being the most popular and purple for special projects. If you want more precision, there is a 'fine line' tape as well. For details you can go to the 3M site and they will have all of the specifics on these products, you will need to match them to your local manufacturers.

Yes
Because you'll be going from dark to light you'll want to primer first, then you'll need two coats of color
Well, it won't look good
Not if you can "cut" around them with a brush
I'm not a big fan of taping

thanks for your reply guys


well first of all when u say primer
i dont get this
what do u mean?


also how quickly could i get this job done the room?
its pretty big around 15ft times 15ft (for uk thats big)

The best online primer* about primer** is at the Zinsser site
I don't know if the actual products refered to are available to you, but the information is valid
http://www.zinsser.com/pdf/HomeOwner...2004_01_15.pdf
It's in pdf format you if you don't have Adobe reader you may want to d-load it

*prim·er1
n.

1. A book that covers the basic elements of a subject.

**prim·er2
n.

1. An undercoat of paint or size applied to prepare a surface, as for painting.

I say definitely spend a lot of time prepping the walls that will be painted. No amount of paint is going to make your walls look good if the prepping hasn't been done correctly. This is the stage that most of the time needs to be spent. If you patch a hole or crack and you don't sand it properly, you won't be able to get that plaster smooth again. Trust me, I have it at my house. Some paint company came through and did a sloppy job. Now I can't really do anything about it. And the worst part is that the latex paint is nearly impossible to sand. I have to now dig out the plaster and redo it all over again.

Prep work is 80% of the game. The painting part is the easy part.

Hope this helps,
Dan