Jan 11
If you have started the new year feeling a bit bored with your surroundings at home, now might be a good time to look at a bit or redecorating.
Many people find having taken dowm the christmas tree and decorations they take a fresh look at their interiors. It may be that just re-arranging the furniture in the living room or bedroom could freshen it up for you. But you might feel that an up-date is overdue and this is a good time of year to take on a relatively minor project you can happily do indoors!
If you haven’t the time or are a bit worried about doing anything too dramatic, you could try just painting or wallpapering an accent wall, and then just buying a few accessories to compliment the change. Or if you are planning a more major overhaul of a room, it is a good idea to get all your ideas, colour swatches etc together so you can make a really good plan of what you want the room to look like and the order that things need to be done in to create the transformation.
We have lots of project pages with advice to help you, from how to mask-up when decorating and advice on different types of paint brushes and rollers, to painting new plaster and hanging wallpaper.
Dec 12
- Image: diyfail.com
This is not the recommended way to decorate your front room (and it would probably be best to keep a better eye on your kids!), but if you need a good eco-friendly paint stripper you should look at using the paint and varnish remover from Eco Solutions!! Read more on our Paint-Stripping project.
If you would like to learn more about
painting and decorating you could take a look at some videos (in our
DIY Videos section) covering how to paint a wall, using sponging techniques, painting window frames, painting a door and painting woodwork.
Alternatively, if you can’t face doing the decorating yourself (or your skills are more like the those in the photo above), you can always get a professional in using our
Find a Tradesman form to get free, no obligation quotes from painers and decorators in your area.
Aug 15
As with last weeks blog post on painting woodwork, painting masonry requires as much, if not a little more, preparation.
Brickwork, render, stonework and blockwork can crumble during the winter as the water gets into tiny fissures and freezes. As water freezes, it expands. The expansion process cracks the masonry a tiny bit more. The crack then lets in a little more water and the process repeats itself all through the winter.
preparing brickwork for painting
This, in construction physics terms, is called Freeze-Thaw action.
To guard against this, regular summer maintenance is called for and our blog post on repointing brickwork will help here. We also have a project called preparing brickwork for painting and you can get there by clicking on the link.
At the bottom of this page you can find out how to replace a damaged brick, how to clean surplus mortar from bricks and we even have a project on how to clean efflorescence
Aug 12
The most common summer job (according to our users) is painting the woodwork and masonry of the outside of the home. We will deal with painting masonry another time but today we can take a look at the best way to prepare your timber windows, doors, fascia boards etc for a coat or two of paint.
Preparation for painting is more important than the painting itself.
You may be happy to do the same job three or four times a year but if, like us, you would prefer to do it right, once every three years, then good preparation is the key.
We have a whole list of projects on the website to help you prepare, and then paint your woodwork and these are listed below. Just click on the link you want to go to.
There are many more painting projects on the website as well as projects on how to clean paint brushes and how to paint both metal and timber garage doors.
As you view each project, look to the left and at the bottom of each page where you will see a list of projects related to the one you are reading. By following these related projects you will be able to gain all the knowledge you need to work your way round the house.
At the very bottom of each page is a tool store where you can click any buy all of the tools and many of the materials you need to complete the job.
