Oh dear, SWMBO has decreed we must have bits of the inside of our house painted.
One quote, so far, one to come and the final one coming to look at the job on Monday.
We want (read SHE wants) the quite small lounge/diner, the hall, stairs and landing doing
Our first quote was for £850 labour, but to include all necessary gloss and undercoat for the skirting boards, stair riser edges, hand rail and six white doors. We've since decide to replace the two doors in the lounge with new oak veneered ones, for which we have ordered the matt varnish. We are also buying (bought yesterday and delivered today, so we are committed!)all the emulsion paint, namely 10 litres of Dulux soft sheen white,for the ceilings, 10 litres of Dulux white cotton silk for the lounge/diner and 10 litres of Dulux white chiffon silk for the hall, stairs etc.
We hope this will leave a few drops for future touching in! All the Dulux emulsion has come from B & Q, for £147, taking advantage of the Diamond club 10% seniors discount. The varnish recommended by the door supplier was Ronseal Ultra Tough matt clear. Quite hard to find, but eventually sourced from Wilkos on-line, at £26 for 2 x 750 ml tins (Going on bare wood, so hopefully that will be enough). Aforesaid doors were IMO reasonable, (not solid oak, but engineered doors with oak veneer and came in at £326, supplied, fitted and with all door furniture.
We also want to replace the poor and cheap quality, carpet we had fitted for the stairs etc and instead of the nasty laminate, have a decent carpet fitted to the lounge diner. Brinton's bell twist is the choice at about £2300 for the lot.
This is, for us, a lot of money and to cut down on expense we are now proposing to do the hall, landing and stairs ourselves. This will save a good bit more than half the labour, but means we will have to buy the white gloss needed ourselves.
Now we come to the point of this ramble.
Oil based gloss is alleged to give a good finish, but yellows quickly: water based gloss is harder to apply , does not have such a shiny finish, but remains white for longer.
Research indicates that Johnstone's Aqua Brilliant white gloss is a decent bet.
What do the resident handypersons here think?
(Needless to say we will not be replacing our car in the foreseeable future..... Women's Maths rules)
Last edited by: Roger. on Thu 18 May 17 at 21:24
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I've found Johnstone's Professional Gloss and Undercoat to be the best gloss available. It is oil based but it gives a very good finish and is durable and does not yellow. If you go for the water based option you will have to use synthetic bristle brushes as natural bristles swell with water based paints and give a bad finish. There are some good prices on line for Johnstone's Professional paints much cheaper than their Decorating Centres.
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I'll second the idea of getting your paint from a decorating shop - go to one with a queue of white vans outside at 7.00am. As said, oil based paint will give you a far better chance of a good finish.
The labour figure you've quoted is outstanding - amazing even ! Round my way you won't get a hall, stairs & landing done for less than a couple of grand. I'd expect a price of around £3000 to include the room as well (all materials included though.)
Can you get your man to pop down to London - I'll even put him up for the time he's here in our spare bedroom and give him full board.
Edit: I've just looked again at the price to supply and fit the doors - can they too come down here and replace all mine - the same board and lodging terms apply.
Last edited by: Dulwich Estate II on Thu 18 May 17 at 22:25
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I prefer the white Satinwood finish on doors, architrave and skirting. But that's personal choice of course.
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Never use Gloss indoors. Looks too harsh. Something like satinwood looks far better in my opinion. Wouldn't use brilliant white either come to that for same reason.
Always use either Crown or Dulux. Take a note of the shade number and keep it somewhere safe. You can always have the same colour made up then if required.
The thing about there being different versions of the same paint for builders and the public is an urban myth.
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>>The thing about there being different versions of the same paint for builders and the public is an urban myth
That is not true in my experience.
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I used Johnstones on recent hall/landing and stairs as it was a good price in Homebase. Seems OK so far...
"Edit: I've just looked again at the price to supply and fit the doors - can they too come down here and replace all mine - the same board and lodging terms apply."
When I moved to Berkshire from rural East Kent I felt exactly the same. I had a caravan at the time and could usefully have employed my local Kent odd job man for quite some weeks with free board and paid travel and still be quids in over local handyman prices. Based on my daughter's experience near Birmingham the gap is likely even wider now than it was then. It is one of the things which some of those people living away from expensive areas tend to overlook when venting against the "well off" people down south. That, and cheap beer prices, cheap car washes, cheap housing and on and on.
Last edited by: smokie on Fri 19 May 17 at 03:33
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>>I used Johnstones on recent hall/landing and stairs as it was a good price in Homebase.
>> Seems OK so far...
>>
The guys who last did some decorating for us said not not buy paint from the sheds even if it has a well known trusted brand name.
It is ( often ) a lower quality / covering power thus slower to use, than the trade version.
Certainly when I have bought paint/emulsion from our very local Brewers Decorators Centre. it was quicker to use and I think a better finish.
They have 150+ outlets but all seem to be in the South and up to the Midlands.
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=>It is ( often ) a lower quality / covering power thus slower to use, than the trade version.
Yucan of course get Dulux Trade from bee and queue, tis what I use:
www.diy.com/search?Ntt=dulux+trade
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>> Yucan of course get Dulux Trade, tis what I use:
+1. It's good stuff.
Our landlord once gave us a tin of Albani branded paint to decorate with. God, it was so thin and watery. I went and bought some Dulux Trade Gloss from Wilko, based on previous good results from it. Won't use anything else now.
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>>bought some Dulux Trade Gloss from Wilko
Ah Bisto Wilkos ... I used some of their 'Green Gorn' algae cleaner on my retaining walls prior to giving them a lick of paint. I had some patching up to do first so I used their all porpoise ready-mixed filler.
A few days later we had some rain, which is unusual for Cornwall :) and the filler ran down the wall as if it was yoghurt. So I bought some Polyfiller exterior filler and, a few days later that did the same thing :(
I've now got some Sandtex masonry filler to do the job for when I get a roun tuit.
I guess the chemicals in the fungicide was somehow interfering with the hardening process of the filler.
Here endeth the ... !!
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Ah Bisto, Dog? Were you aware the kids had names? Bill and Maree.
Just saying. As you were.
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Eh, no, but I remember little weed of the flowerpot men :o)
I'm on episode 8, season 2 of Ragnar Lothbrok BTW ;)
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Well, if you care to clonk on this Truly Excellent little site, and enter Vikings as the title of interest, you will see that episode 9 is (even) better and 10 is a right cracker.
graphtv.kevinformatics.com/
It gives you the IMDB ratings as they are at the moment you graph them.
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Has "graph" always been a verb?
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>> Has "graph" always been a verb?
Define "always". No idea how long it's been a verb, but it is now, at any rate.
You'll be telling me you don't know what a Venn diagram is next.
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I realise that it is now, but I'm sure it didn't used to be.
>define "always".
For as long as the world has been spinning around me. Always.
I like venn diagrams. My favourite.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 19 May 17 at 12:49
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>> Has "graph" always been a verb?
When did "you do the maths" become "you do the math"?
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>> Has "graph" always been a verb?
>>
That's the point about English - there is no noun that cannot be verbed.
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>>Eh, no, but I remember little weed of the flowerpot men :o)<<
And Zebedee Boingggggggg. Or was that Dougal?
Pat
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Dunno, I was more, um, into Bill and Ben :)
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I would have imagined you would be more interested in a Little Weed. You could have stared into space and wondered if there was a Dog.
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A little weed came along about the same time as I discovered The Flowerpot Men:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=puuWsTitPa4
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Horror, Dog. When I was about 14 I found a book in a holiday cottage all about Haight-Ashbury etc, and I really enjoyed it. This new hippy world was amazing to a rather prim British schoolboy, even very vicariously.
Long since forgot what the book was called and every so often I desperately try to recall/search for anything that might make me remember it so I could read it again.
Had forgotten it temporarily but you've brought it up. Thank you so much. Sigh.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwlATaS2E-I
Organics seem not to have had such a bad long effect!
(Not sure if all are originals though).
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Twice now I've clicked on that link and now you have to suffer the memory it istantly brings to mind for me!
A balmy warm summer evening sat on an Aerial Leader at Oakham crossing gates waiting for them to open.
Up rides a motorbike cop who signals me to pull over to the kerb and proceeds to lecture me about wearing 'suitable attire when riding a motorbike'.
I really don't know what he was on about.
I was wearing a florescent yellow knee length kaftan, a leather jacket with tassels and little bells hanging from all of the zips and of course I had long hair blowing in the breeze as it was before crash helmets.
I agree the wind did get up my wide kaftan skirt just a bit when I got above 25 mph.....
Oakham doesn't 'do' that sort of stuff, it was very posh, and still thinks it is now!
Pat
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Ah, Pat, I always thought you might be a bit of a spaced out hippy chick. Far out.
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Oh yes, I was 14 in 1960 so I enjoyed the sixties to it's full:)
Peace Man:)
Pat
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Talking of Haight Ashbury, several years ago we caught the ferry from Vallejo over to SF and got a cheapo room in the area. After a culture fix in the CA Academy of Science and a large wildflower greenhouse we had a pub crawl the length of Haight St. Lots of pubs. Eating houses. Hippy shops. Great afternoon.
I then made the fatal mistake of returning early evening to our hotel, two hours kip, then out again. I spent all night yodelling down the porcelain telephone shouting for Hughie.
Lesson learnt
Not my greatest moment, never to be repeated.
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>>Haight-Ashbury
First I knew who what or where the Haight-Ashbury district was, is when I read 2 or 3 books by www.radhanathswami.com/srila-prabhupada/ who is credited with bringing Krishna Consciousness to the west back in the 1960's.
I must have leanings towards 'that sort' of thing because I also have books written by Paramahansa Yogananda and Sai Baba.
Hare Krishna.
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I worked, until early 2015, in a small DIY store, and we had lots of painters & decorators with trade accounts. One of my roles was operating the two paint mixing machines, and I have just painted my late Aunts flat top to bottom. The gloss paint had yellowed terribly, so after sanding all door frames, window sills and skirtings both manually & with a mouse sander, used Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 Primer Sealer. I also used this to cover blue tack marks on walls, paint over filled holes and cracks in walls, and on ceilings where fluorescent light fittings had been replaced by new pendants. It's good stuff.
On the woodwork I then used Joncryl water based primer/ undercoat, then Leyland Trade white satinwood. Quick drying, easy to apply, good coverage and stays white longer.. the Dulux Diamond white is, in my opinion, too white, if that makes sense.
I like a lot of the Farrow & Ball colours, and at work was forever mixing them into Leyland Trade paint ... you cannot copyright a colour, so we punched in a code which resulted in a F & B colour.
Johnstones Trade water based gloss was very popular with the pros, for those who liked gloss paint, as was Zinsser Permanent White for areas of high humidity... bathroom & small kitchen ceilings in old cottages.
For the walls I mixed thousands of litres of F & B White Tie into Leyland Trade Matt which is a nice warm white, yet provides sufficient contrast to a flat white ceiling. I've used Leyland Trade eggshell on the radiators, again in White Tie, as I don't want to make a 'feature' of them, and they will blend in to the White Tie coloured walls
Hope that helps...although I duly note you have already bought the paints Roger.
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Correct re not being able to trademark a colour, Cadbury recently lost an appeal to trademark "their" purple, Pantone 2685C.
gdknowledge.co.uk/nestle-v-cadbury-registering-a-colour-as-a-trademark/
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>>If you go for the water based option you will have to use synthetic bristle brushes as natural
>>bristles swell with water based paints and give a bad finish.
Interesting, and a top tip if - as seems likely - true. Thank you.
>>I like a lot of the Farrow & Ball colours, and at work was forever mixing them into Leyland
>>Trade paint ... you cannot copyright a colour, so we punched in a code which resulted in a F
>>& B colour.
Yea but, no but... Your Leyland paint will never look like F&B paint as you won't have the right sort of - nor enough of the - pigments.
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Depends on which F & B paint you use. If memory serves me correctly, the F & B Estate has a slightly chalky finish, whereas their Modern Emulsion has a slight sheen. I used to buy lots of the latter from a shop in Kendal when I was renovating properties with my 'in trade' friends.
Professional decorators, and the maintenance staff at a certain large school nearby, tell me that they prefer both Dulux & Leyland Trade paints over F & B in respect of coverage.
I stopped using F & B when I discovered I could get their colours mixed in Leyland Trade. Customers seem more than happy to be saving £££ for a similar finish with the Modern, but if you prefer the Estate chalky finish I'm don't know of alternatives
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Update:
Three quotes now obtained for our little job. (All paint, except radiator paint, gloss white undercoat and topcoat, already bought by us.)
I find it hard to understand the huge differential for exactly the same job,
All three are "proper" decorators, not "a few quid on the side" merchants.
1. Ruth - The Lady Painter (that's how she labels herself!) £1145.00.
2. Bob - very local to us. £850.00.
3. Percy - close-ish to us, recommended by a friend. £660.00.
No contest, really, so Percy the Painter it is!
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LOL Percy, really? - who is called that these days? He must be in his nineties LOL. The only Percys I can think of is the one you point at the porcelain (not Pat!) and the bloke who invented cat's eyes. Well, and some even older ones like poets 'n' stuff. Hywel Bennett was once a Percy too IIRC.
Lady painting sounds fun. Saw it being done once in a shop in Daytona Beach during Bike Week where the ladies were being readied for their shifts on the street bars. Maybe that was not what Ruth does though :-)
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>> The only Percys I can think of is....
Percy Thrower, Blue Peter gardener from 1974 until 1987.
Percy Sledge (1940-2015) R&B Singer.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 22 May 17 at 12:57
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& the Duke of Northumberland.
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Painting - riddler
