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some painting advice

Btone

Btone

Btone

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Joined
23 Jan 2003
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N.I.
i got my house about 5 years ago, it was a show house before i got it.
i am going to start painting it and was doing some prep work this afternoon, i put some masking tape on the wall, realize it was in the wrong place and when i pealed it off it lifted some paint, thought that was odd so stuck a bit of tape of a different part of the wall and when i pealed that off it took about 40% of the paint it was stuck to off.

so after doing a bit of reading on this forum i am guessing that when they painted the show house they did it as cheap as they could and din't use a mist coat, hence while it look OK it not bonded to the wall right.

What the best way for me to fix this or do i just paint on top of it and make sure nothing is ever stuck to the wall
 
Frog Tape - normal green, and yellow is low tac which is what I would recommend. Re-paint the walls in a good quality silk/matt and use the yellow Frog Tape to tape your ceiling or wall and coving lines as needed.

It's just painters tape and reasonably expensive but doesn't take paint off as much as masking tape and worth it in my opinion. Once you get 1 or 2 good coats of a decent paint on top, you'll be fine for future painting I had similar problems in my 'show' housing painting which also seemed to be done on the cheap.
 
+1 for Frog tape.

I previously always used the default cheap B&Q / Screwfix masking tape and would nearly always suffer some paint coming off when removing. Tried Frog tape and had not one issue, plus the edge achieved is much truer with no small imperfections.
 
To answer your question, I would just lightly sand the walls back with a fine to medium grade paper (depending on what paint you already have), I think go over the walls with a tac cloth and then just start painting. I'd use medium grade paper on silk. For matt then you may be able to water the paint down a little but to be honest the damage is probably already done. I'm no expert so happy to be corrected.

If I bought a new house I think I would insist on painting it myself as I've not seen many new homes with good finishes.

I don't really rate tape much - frog tape is pretty expensive and to be honest apart from taping up for protecting carpet/flooring I find if I paint my room logically and take my time I don't need tape, it just slows me down as it takes longer to get the right line!

I bought a plastic cutting in tool by Harris and it's great for skirtings (particularly if the walls are matt) but nothing beats a steady hand and not overloading your brush.

I recently went to a friend's place that decorated the entire place and I was really appalled with the finish. He was in a hurry, and it really showed!
 
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Never used tape when painting I find it causes more hassle than it's worth and encourages people to be sloppy a the right size brush lightly loaded and a steady hand wins for me every time.
 
Funny enough we painted our house this weekend and used green frog tape on the coving. It took paint off in about 10 places!
 
I don't think I've ever used tape for paint to paint, I've used it paint to windows but not paint to paint.

Buy a decent cutting in brush then paint a wall in emulsion with it, that will sharpen it up then use it to cut in. Steady hand.
 
I tried using frog tape recently and it ripped a load of the paint off and didn't really leave a perfectly clean line anyway. I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
 
It all depends on how you use the tape. If you press the entire sticky area down then yeah it will pull paint off but stick It just on the edge your painting agenst.
 
Do what my mate does who's a painter decorator, he only cuts in after lunch which involves a spliff, then he spends all afternoon cutting in.
 
Whenever I've encountered this problem, using the typical cheap white masking tape, I found it best to stick it to another surface first (eg. a length of wood) to remove a lot of the tackiness.
Seems to work and stops this problem occurring.
 
Mr Joshua said:
Whenever I've encountered this problem, using the typical cheap white masking tape, I found it best to stick it to another surface first (eg. a length of wood) to remove a lot of the tackiness.
Seems to work and stops this problem occurring.
Click to expand...

Thats a good idea - will try that next time!
 
i used frog tape and it trashed my lovely ceiling, taking your time with a small brush is the best way imo.
 
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