Decorating Blues - prep advice required

Phil1974

Phil1974

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Hi all,
We've recently had a loft extension done and I am in the progress of decorating. All is going well but I am now faced with the old part of the house to freshen up. We have a lot (!) of woodwork to key/rub down (picture rail, dado rail, 8 doors and skirting). This is doing my head in and a very slow process with sandpaper. My question is would a light coat of Nitromors and a sand down be easier and quicker than trying to just sand? I was thinking if I left the Nitromors less time to work than normal then it would just soften the top coat up enough. Anyone tried it or have a better suggestion (please [emoji22])

Cheers.
 
Never done it but I would think that would leave you with a sticky sludge all over the surface which would be a nightmare to sand. :thinking:
 
Good point Gramps. I haven't used it in ages. Forgot it would do that [emoji53] Maybe a heat gun might work?
 
You could use a shellac primer, such as Bins.

It will adhere to paint without sanding. It dries very quickly, so you need to work fast.
 
Yeah, get some power on it ;)

Multi tool or there's a little palm sander in Screwfix that's great for skirting.

Or.....pull the wood off and replace with some new woodwork. Wickes sell skirting and dado rail that's ready finished. Cut, glue to wall, fill and touch up joints. You can do a room faster than you can sand the old stuff.
 
Yup I used both a multi tool and this little black and decker mouse sander. Was very cheap fromB&Q and made real light work off it. The finish is all in the prep work.
 
If the old paintwork is in generally good order, i.e. not many lumps and bumps, then just rub down where there are lumps, then use the old fashioned sugar soap and don't forget to wipe down with clean water afterwards. Fill any gaps or holes and do any further sanding of lumps etc and then paint. Nitromors is only useful for stripping paint.
 
JonathanRyan said:
pull the wood off and replace with some new woodwork. Wickes sell skirting and dado rail that's ready finished. Cut, glue to wall, fill and touch up joints. You can do a room faster than you can sand the old stuff.
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This, a thousand times this... I've basically worked my way around the house, room by room doing exactly this - though I actually used "normal" skirting and stained it then finished with a couple of coats of yacht varnish BEFORE cutting and fitting it. Basically set up a "paint-shop" production line in the garage, 6 lengths of skirting on a couple of saw-horses, and work your way across them. Second room I went one further and borrowed a spraygun setup from a mate - took maybe 20 minutes to do a room-worth, and the finish was brilliant!
OK, it meant that I may have wasted a drop or two of stain and varnish, and I had to be careful with the fitting process not to scratch the fnished article, but now it's done, it's pretty much done "for good" - every other time I decorate the room, I'll just give it a scrub with a scotchbrite pad and another quick brush over with the varnish before applying any of the "wall finishes" - dead easy.

I Actually used a slightly deeper profile skirting to the one originally fitted - saved having to plaster up the occasional chips in the wall where the original came away, and it all ended up going on with builders adhesive (generic "no more nails") and worked an absolute treat - took less time to do a room than it would have to have stripped, sanded and re-finished one wall worth... as I know, because I also did the Staircase - and in that case, I DID strip and re-finish the stairs and surrounding woodwork, and it was a bloody nightmare, even with heatguns and all the proper power tools, it was a smelly, unpleasant, dusty horrible job.
 
TheBigYin said:
I actually used "normal" skirting and stained it then finished with a couple of coats of yacht varnish BEFORE cutting and fitting it.
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Yep. I was going to do that on a problem room. Then I found that Wickes charge about £1 per length to do it for you ;) I couldn't find any deep rpofiles though - the stuff I got was modern small board which meant I had to fill the walls a bit.
 
Use a skirting ladder. Available to hire from some places (might need to book one and there could be a long wait) or, if there's a lot to do, cheaper to buy one.

If going for Mark's solution and using paint, knock the sharp edges off the mouldings - the paint will stick to slightly rounded edges much better than sharp ones. A quick tickle with some sandpaper will do the job. Unless the paint that's already there is really bad (or old 1 coat stuff...), I would just rub it back to reasonably flat then undercoat and gloss as normal - stripping it back will be a nasty, smelly job (and, if it's an old building, possibly dangerous - lots of lead in old white paints.)
 
Nod said:
lots of lead in old white paints
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That was one of my major concerns to be honest - as I tested a couple of the skirting boards in the room and they did have a couple of layers of lead paint on them... fortunately I dodged that particular bullet on the staricase - apparently the previous owner had taken the leaded paint off, as there were only about 5 layers on there - compared to maybe 10 or more on the skirtings in the room... and none were leaded. Still a PITA to strip it back though, especially as it seemed that he'd re-primed with what looked like emulsion, which wouldn't come off without sanding everywhere.
 
We did have one particularly thick naïve apprentice who actually went to the hardware shop to get a long weight. The nice lady even made him a cuppa while someone went to get it for him.
 
I used to work next door to the Burberry Factory in Castleford years ago, the stories about sending apprentices to the stores to get a fresh spool of Tartan Cotton for sewing the linings into the coats were legendary...
 
Thanks guys. Bought a cheap Erbauer Palm sander from screwfix and its zipping through it now [emoji106]
I would love to replace the lot but I'm on a tight time frame as we have the new carpets going in next week so need to be done by then. Oh, and I'm really, really useless at DIY [emoji1]
 
Phil1974 said:
Thanks guys. Bought a cheap Erbauer Palm sander from screwfix and its zipping through it now [emoji106]
I would love to replace the lot but I'm on a tight time frame as we have the new carpets going in next week so need to be done by then. Oh, and I'm really, really useless at DIY [emoji1]
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As long as it does the job!
Cheap and cheerful, it's not as if you have to do it every day, week after week, month after month... :)

Enjoy.
 
And if Screwfix are close enough and the thing craps out, they'll replace it for you. All I can say is that I'm glad we had an apprentice to do the nasty little jobs like sanding skirting - it was bad enough going along them 3 times to paint them properly!
 
Phil1974 said:
Thanks guys. Bought a cheap Erbauer Palm sander from screwfix and its zipping through it now [emoji106]
I would love to replace the lot but I'm on a tight time frame as we have the new carpets going in next week so need to be done by then. Oh, and I'm really, really useless at DIY [emoji1]
Click to expand...

That's the exact one I meant to recommend. A bit clunky around the power switch but it's done OK for me and they are dead cheap. Just make sure you get the right replacement sheets - just ask somebody at the counter.
 
I certainly would not be sanding and kicking up all that lead dust into the air. Particularly if you have children. As someone mentioned earlier a shellac primer like BIN and just paint over it. Or if you really want to strip it use something like Peelaway or kling-strip. Nitromors is a waste of time and money.
 
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