Now all rooms have been plastered and fully dried out we can start the painting process. First we start by sanding down all the fresh plaster to ensure the walls and ceilings have a slight texture. This takes the sheen out of the plaster and gives a better base for the paint to adhere to.
First coat of paint to be applied is a mist coat. This is a reduced down coat made up of ten litres of paint to three litres of water approximately and whisked thoroughly. The mist coat is designed to soak into the plaster so that when the next coat of paint is applied there is no lift. For the mist coat and base coat we only use Dulux Super Matte in white.
After the first coat is dry a full base coat of white Super Matte is applied to all walls and ceilings. Once this coat has dried we then de-nib all walls and ceilings with a flat scraper removing any minor imperfections.
This particular refurbishment the client chose Dulux Easy Clean in Polished Pebble throughout, which gives a light and airy finish to all rooms. When we apply the colour coats we always apply a minimum of two coats to each room. We use Easy Clean paint on most of our projects as it's far more durable than standard matte paint and is wipe clean like it states on the tin! The cost difference for this paint is very minimal averaging approximately £3 per liter more than the standard matte.
All woodwork has two coats of Dulux Primer / Undercoat applied. Then we sand and use a tack cloth prior to applying a final two coats of Dulux Satin Wood in white. We prefer to use an oil based Satin Wood rather than a water based version as it gives a much better finish and is far more durable. The only downside to an oil based Satin Wood is that it has a slightly longer drying time than a water based paint.
Keep checking back for our next blog post next week!