Wondering if you guys can help me with a painting problem.
I started out with Kilz over new plaster walls. at first, I went with a Ben Moore lighter beige color, then changed my mind and went with a greenish color. Then, wife changed her mind and decided she wanted to go with a red color. So we bought Ben Moore paint and tinted primer and went at it. All of these were in the “Pearl” finish by the way.
Next, she decided she wanted to go with a burgundy color in a flat finish. The burgundy that BM makes was only in an exterior semigloss finish, so the dealer was nice enought to mix that color into the flat base. Nevertheless, he said to expect some sheen to it since it was red.
We sanded all the walls using 120 grit paper. The first coat went on real well, but there were still some pinkish spots showing through. When I put on the second coat though, I started getting all of these spots that had more sheen to it than others. It looked really bad.
So I went and got a couple of gallons of Glidden flat paint in burgundy. But for some reason i keep on getting the same “spots”.
Maybe my painting technique is bad. I use an 18″ roller with a 3/8 nap and when I’m finished painting a wall, I go back and take the roller and very lightly roll each section once from bottom to top. On other rooms it seems to work fine…the finish is flat and even.
Any advice on what to do to get rid of these spots?
Many thanks!
Replies
If you change the location of the light source in the room, do the spots move? If so, it's the angle of lighting causing a reflection. The other thing I can think of is that the wall was not evenly sanded and it's showing.
Did you reprime the room between colors? I always prime between colors of paint. Sherwin Williams has a "neutral gray" based primer system which I think works really well. Deep reds/burgundy's will not cover as well because they have to add so much pigment to the base. These colors really need a good tinted primer base. I learned this the hard way when my walk-in closet took four coats to get it the deep red (it was a hot pink on the first coat.)
The spots remain in the same place when i move the droplight around. and no, i didn't reprime between every color change, although i did prime it again this last time. What gets me is that the first coat usually looks nice and even. It's only when I put the second coat on that this problem happens.Since the walls have a little bit of texture due to so many d*mn layers of paint on it, would it be possible to just skim it with JC, sand, reprime and then recoat?
Hang artwork over the shiny places...
Now this may not work...but don't forget to create a giant sign of how this would've been avoided if your wife didn't change her mind. Show her the sign and then quickly run out of the room. :-)I learned to buy samples and paint little squares around the room of the different colors. I also limit my wife to 3 colors max. After that, it's up to her to paint the room...so far I haven't received any dirty looks or been slapped.
Why don't you get some nice red wallcovering, I do know a good paperhanger.
I hate wallpaper.
I don't know the answer but my first reaction is to ask how old the plaster was when you primed, followed by the possibility that Kilz, not specifically being a masonry primer, could be the culprit. If the plaster wasn't 30 days old, hmm. I'm not the expert on plaster, as the saying goes, just enough to be dangerous. I know you can get paint issues if it isn't cured out.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
Good grief. Evidently, pleasing the DW's color desires isn't an easy task, eh? <G>
Sounds like ya got many coats of various formulations of (latex?) paint applied in relatively short order there.
How long between the various coats? Minutes <G>, hours, days, weeks, months?
Are you "spotting in" (when you think you see problem areas) with different application tools or is this all by the same roller and applied uniformly ?
If your sanding of the walls wasn't done VERY evenly/uniformly, then the hold-out would automatically vary from one area to the next and that alone would result in different sheen values/results. If a mix of application tools was added to the mix......even more so.
You decided to sand the multiply-painted walls because..........??? (sanding latex paint is a real favorite of mine..........not)
RW asked a very important question, IMO.........how old is this plaster? Veneer or three-coat or.........?
This is veneer plaster. It had cured for about 4 months before I started painting.All of it is latex, except for the Kilz, which was oil-based. And I probably didn't let everything dry well before I added the next coat.I tried a couple of things last night. On one section I trowled on a real thin skim coat of JC, sanded it down, a put down a dark tinted primer coat and a coat of paint. So far it looks pretty good.The other thing I did was add a little bit of floetrol to the paint in order to keep a wet edge a little longer. A friend of mine came over and thought that the problem was I was going back over sections that had already started to dry. I like to tease my wife quite a bit about how many times she changes her mind, but then she always points out that if i was not completely anal about making things look good/right this whole remodel would have been done several months ago (which is true).I guess indulging her in her color whims is the least I can do for having her stumble over a table saw every morning! :)
Rereading your OP this evening here and something strikes me as a big ???.
You said that BM only offered that burgundy in an exterior semi-gloss, but that he was "kind" enough to mix it up in a flat base for you. Out of curiosity……interior or exterior base? In either event, there may well be a reason that they only offered that color in that exterior paint and that because none of the other paint bases they offer has enough binder included to handle that much pigment. If so, he may not have done you any favor at all.Without watching you apply your paint, it's really impossible to comment reliably on your techniques, but…..your friend could well be right. If you have a tendency to go back and play with paint that's already started to flash-off, you can easily alter the sheen value ……and cause changes in surface density that will also affect the holdout and sheen of the next application of paint in that area. How much so depends upon the paint itself, whether it is a flat, semi or gloss ….. exactly when during the flash-off you diddled in it……….and to some degree with what tool. For instance, SW EverClean is generally a real PITA to apply with contact type tools (unless you do it at ambient temps below say 60F or so). It flashes off really fast and if you set foot in it after it has……you just altered the sheen pretty substantially. Diddling with it more only makes it worse. Spray gun only for me with EC. Either that or pour the Floetrol to it.Sounds like all manner of paints were applied in relatively short order ….too short most likely and that other surface altering techniques coulda also occurred. But that's all water over the dam now. If you've decided to skim these walls in yet another attempt to get a presentable/satisfactory surface…..I'd personally let the business rest for at least a week before proceeding. Two would be better, me thinks. Remember that any difference in the surface density from one area to the next will alter the hold-out and that will lead to more uneven sheen problems. Can't see exactly what the deal is from here, but most likely I'd be applying three (maybe four) very thin coats of skim (Plus 3, thinned right on the hawk with a little water to make it glide easier). Doing it this way means I'll have little, if any, sanding/screening required when I'm done in order to smooth out the surface. Even so….. I have to do a very light screening of every sq. inch anyway to insure that the surface density is the same everywhere. Failure to do so will almost guarantee that the holdout will be different and so will the resulting sheen of the paint. When skimming a wall with multiple thin coats of compound, some areas will be more dense and some will be more burnished than others as your knife has lapped over some areas numerous times and the pressure and angle on the knife won't always be the same, either. That's why the light screening is necessary.Edit: For thin skimming purposes like this, I use a maximum of a 10" knife for first coat, usually switching then to 6" for subsequent coats. A spray bottle of water provides a handy way to add tads of water to your compound as it dries out of the hawk during use. Get a light stand set up close to the wall area you're working to provide a hard-raking sidelight and move it about, left, right, up and down. If you don't, what evades your perception now...will show up after you eventually place and turn on that tablelamp. Then the teeth grinding will start. <G>Another curiousity on my part...... Was this sand-float plaster or smooth/putty finish on the walls? Not that it likely makes any difference now.....just curious. I'm thinkin' that if it was sand-float, it woulda been more difficult to detect variances in sheen levels, and so if it was SF and the variance was easy to see......it musta been pretty substantial differences.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.Edited 10/27/2005 10:16 pm ET by goldhillerEdited 10/27/2005 10:19 pm ET by goldhiller
Edited 10/27/2005 10:34 pm ET by goldhiller