Posted by Charles Budd on Monday, August 15, 2016,
Until the scaffolding was up on this semi-detached house in Stratford upon Avon, it was difficult to see the state of the faux Tudor timber beams at the top of the house. Once I got up onto the scaffolding, and poked my finger into the timber, I got rather a shock. It was not only rotten, but just thin planking.
Taking a closer look at the paint, you can see it was in very poor shape. Nearly all the paint would have to come off.
It was time to get my professional Finnish and German sanding equ...
Posted by Charles Budd on Saturday, July 23, 2016,
This piece of guttering was only just hanging on.
Imagine if it had dropped on someone's head.
Here’s the ‘executive summary' of the detailed process below.
- Clean off all flaky gubbins*. (*Technical term.)
- Glue the pieces of cast iron together using Repair Care resins.
- Paint your guttering.
- Stand back with a cup of tea and gaze in awe at your repair.
If you really want to know the ins and outs, brew yourself your favourite beverage, sneak a couple of ginger nuts out of the biscuit tin...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Monday, August 24, 2015,
I won't drone on for too long about how much I love my sanding equipment. I'm sure you've better things to do. I've got two Mirka sanders for broad areas - the Ceros and Deros, and I've got two Festool sanders - the RO90 for exterior timber work, and my RTS400, mainly for interior woodwork, and for finishing off exterior woodwork.
These sanders make a MASSIVE difference to my decorating. Sorry for the caps, but I can't emphasise how useful they are. Not only can I sand much quicker with these...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Sunday, June 7, 2015,
Some of you may know that I'm one of the reviewers on the Painting and Decorating Product Reviews website. It's a relatively new site but already proving popular and reviews are now coming in thick and fast.
Over the next few weeks the team of professional decorators who do the reviews will be adding new products to review, as well as lending their experienced eye to review products already on the site.
The plan is to provide both professional decorators and DIY decorators alike with a comple...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Saturday, November 15, 2014,
Several ideas have been spinning around my head due to a
particular job this year. A job of
patience, intricacy, detail, more patience, thought, analysis, change of
technique, more patience, evolution of technique....
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Patience and Detail - needed with cast iron lattice windows.Those of you who know me know I'm a pretty patient chap.
Earlier in my working life I was a care worker for adults with learning
difficulties and challenging behaviour - that needed oodles of patience, and
empathy too. I...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Tuesday, October 21, 2014,
I'm often asked to repair walls and ceilings which have had water damage from leaks. It really helps to know what products to use to sort them out.
Zinsser Peel StopOn a recent job this summer, I was asked to repair some peeling and cracking paint by a kitchen hob.
All the loose paint was scraped off. And all the cracks were 'raked out' (this gives filler something decent to grab onto). Then one coat of
Zinsser Peel Stop water-borne primer was brushed onto the whole area, taking care to brush...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Tuesday, July 1, 2014,
Bedec are a small, British paint company. Many of you may not have heard of Bedec, but it has a damn useful range of paints. I'll blog more about some of their paints in other blogs, but for the time, here's one on their brilliant Barn Paint... and no, it's not just for barns!
You can buy it online at Allfinishes here:
https://allfinishes.co.uk/bedec-barn-paintThe ShedI got an old 8ft by 8ft shed from Freecycle. It was stained brown, patchy brown, all over. It looked like a big, ugly, brown l...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Thursday, December 12, 2013,
I'm repainting a lovely bespoke kitchen at the moment, and all the cabinet hinges had paint on them. I cleaned off a few, but it was taking quite a long time, and I had dozens!
Putting the little grey cells into action, I put all the hinges and screws from the cabinet doors into a large freezer bag, gave them 5 squirts of
Multi Task Multi-Purpose Cleaner, moved them about in the bag a bit, sealed and left for a few hours. I was told by
Andy from Eco Solutions in Somerset (who make Multi Task)...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Thursday, November 7, 2013,
I just thought I'd share a
few photos of a recent job. Sorry about the quality of the photos!
Some
months ago I was approached to refresh a neutral and tired-looking sitting
room. I was too busy at the time, but gave a quote which was accepted and the
work booked in for autumn half-term while the house was empty.
The
specification was to repair some deep holes in plaster caused by redundant
light fittings, general preparation work, repaint ceiling, 3 walls, woodwork
and fireplace, and pape...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Tuesday, October 15, 2013,
As an experiment, I've made this entire post into a Pinterest graphic.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/155796468333066160/ Continue reading ...
Posted by Charles Budd on Sunday, July 7, 2013,
I'm currently painting the exterior of a customer's house. Most of the brick is unpainted, except a couple of square metres where there was a lean-to in the past. I asked my customer whether he'd like me to strip the paint off, to even it all up. He said it was a good idea.
There were several layers of gloss paint on the brick - and I knew to sand it all off would take a long time, as well as quite a lot of Abranet (the mesh sanding 'paper' I use which enables most of the dust produced by san...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Saturday, May 4, 2013,
I was asked by a regular customer to renovate a large dresser unit in her kitchen. It had been painted many times before, and the previous decorator had been asked to make it look like the rest of the natural wood kitchen. He'd decided to paint it brown, so it looked 'kind of like wood'. It didn't! The only way to really get the dresser to look like natural wood, without a huge effort of painting natural grains on it, was to completely strip it.
This particular customer has a low tolerance...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Saturday, March 2, 2013,
When starting a new decorating job we first mask and cover surfaces we're not decorating, then get on with the preparation work. There will almost always be cracks and dents to be filled, old paint to be sanded... but what often frustrates us is having to undo the previous decorator's job! One of our maxims is 'do the job well, and it'll be a lot easier to decorate next time'. So why, oh why do some decorators do things like this:
Yes, they had filled ONTO the switch with caulk, and then pai...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Monday, December 10, 2012,
For two days in November, the Ricoh Arena in Coventry became an Ali Baba's Cavern of Delights for decorators. There were the usual suspects - Dulux, Crown, Johnstone's-Leyland, Purdy... but also lesser-known brands to some perhaps, like Mythic, Owatrol, Axus, Olfa, Wooster... and new innovations like Ladder-Limb and Handi-Pad. I went on just one day, for 6 hours, and it was nowhere near enough time to see everything and talk to everyone I wanted to.
As it was I talked to a couple of dozen dec... Continue reading ...
Posted by Charles Budd on Monday, June 18, 2012,
I like to blame as much as I
can on Andy Crichton, yes, him off the Traditional Painter website.
It's his fault that I've spent lots of time
practicing how to use Toupret skim fillers to get a finish smoother than an
baby's bottom on walls and ceilings.
It's his fault that I've had to spend delicious
hours experimenting with Little Greene paints to get the most beautiful
eggshell finish to woodwork (they're much better than that other 'heritage'
brand that most people rave about).
And es...
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