The Brushmate is as simple as it is effective: a sealable vapour box containing a pad impregnated with a clever proprietary fluid; it means you don’t need to clean your brushes after using them.
Finish using your oil paint brushes, store them for days — or even months — and when you come back to them, they’ll be ready to use.
Highly recommended.
2-part filler — usually simply called “2-part” or 2-pack”, depending on your preference — will set you apart from the herd as your pursue a professional finish.
Generally: use plaster-based fillers for wall and ceiling repairs; use 2-part for woodwork.
A solvent-based product, you’ll work with a golf ball-sized amount of the filler, and mix it well with a pea-sized amount of hardener. The sets off a chemical reaction and, from the moment it has begun, the mix will start to harden: you don’t have long — maybe 5 minutes before it starts to become gritty and unworkable.
Use it to repair dings and surface damage to doors and skirtings indoors, and see how it really comes into its own for challenging exterior repairs where wet rot has been a problem.
In terms of manufacturers: historically, the gold standard for professional painters and decorators has been Decor Fill by Bonda.
A more recently launched alternative is made by Ronseal — the big benefits of this are that it is much easier to sand, is easier to feather-in to the surrounding surface, and that it is available in white.
Linseed oil putty seems to be the embodiment of the very best traditional methods and craftsmanship: it has been around, probably little-changed, for a long time; it is easy to work with; and it smells wonderful, like the naturally derived product it is.
But as a method for sealing glass into traditional timber-framed windows it is prone to failure — indeed, ask 100 experienced decorators to tell you the curing time for putty, and you will probably receive almost as many different answers.
In 2014, we bade farewell to our last tub of putty, and switched to Dry Seal, made by Repair Care. It is a considerably more expensive synthetic product, but it is truly superior to putty. Dry Seal remains permanently elastic and, perhaps best of all, can be painted — no arguments — within 30 minutes.
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How to decorate, no.3: Don't use putty, use Dry Seal Read Post »
There isn’t any way of dodging this ironclad rule: buy the best brushes and rollers you can afford.
Granted, buying professional quality paint brushes and rollers won’t suddenly and miraculously transform you into a professional decorator — but good equipment will maximise what ability you do possess. Or, to put it another way: it’s impossible to do a good job with poor quality equipment.
Let trusted brands, pricing and specialist shops be your guide:
The closest we can offer to a sure-fire tip is to buy Purdy’s XL Elite 3-pack from My Paint Brush, which contains a 2″, 1.5″ and 1″ brush. If you’ve been toiling away with B&Q multi-pack brushes, these are going to be a revelation…
Housing defines the nature of a city. “Every city has its own typology,” he explains. “For instance, New York has skyscrapers, while the fabric of London is Victorian housing or row houses.”
The chances are good that, as a Londoner, you live — or at one point have lived — in a late 19th-century house. The fabric of the city is indeed Victorian.
The odds are also good that you’ve encountered potentially quite old Brighton fasteners, steel butt hinges, necked bolts and casement stays, all members of the same class of humble and hard-working objects which attract notice only when they stop working. They are also objects which ought not to be — but tend to be — covered in countless layers of paint.
If you seek a professional finish, one of the first rules you should enforce is: don’t paint ironmongery. And if you’re truly dedicated to the cause, you’ll remove the paint or replace the ironmongery.
Here is a straightforward example of when it was better to simply replace the ironmongery:
…and here’s an example of where it was right to put in the hard yards: using Nitromors to strip the paint from a set of period interlocking brass door handles and bars…
Take your pick — but promise that you won’t repeat the sins of those who went before you.
