Posted by Charles Budd on Sunday, January 29, 2017,
In :
Interview
Chris Kerfoot (who's superb decorating work you can find here: www.ChrisKerfootPainterandDecorator.co.uk) founder of the Brothers of the Brush decorators' forum on Facebook asked me whether I could do a quick interview with Ian Frost, Regional President of the Painting and Decorating Association.
Chris had seen the quick video interviews I’d done at the National Painting and Decorating Show and asked whether I could do a slightly longer version for the group. He and Ian, who are both sterl...
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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 Sunday, April 10, 2016,
Someone I've been advising asked me a question about what colour to paint his north facing dining room. I've never met him or seen his house. He told me he wanted to use Little Greene paint - a great choice as it's one of the best quality British paint brands out there.
I emailed him a quick, and necessarily vague reply, which included the following paragraph:
"Choosing colour is the most subjective part of the job. It depends what kind of mood you want in the dining room.
Something bright and ... Continue reading ...
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 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 Monday, January 27, 2014,
Two of my favourite customers, Sally and Andy, asked me to do a complete repaint of their 9 year old bespoke kitchen in their Warwickshire cottage. It's always a pleasure to work for them, but this project was a bit special as it's such a lovely room!
Most areas were in reasonable decorative repair, but as it's an old house, quite a few cracks needed filling - particularly along the oak beams, and all the kitchen cabinets needed a lot of sanding before moving onto priming and painting. I love...
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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 Wednesday, September 18, 2013,
Choosing the right paint brush for a decorating job can affect the quality of the finish, how easy it is to apply the paint, as well as how quickly you can get the job done. It's a bit like choosing a car - there's no one vehicle that's perfect for every job, so how do you choose what's best for you?
Firstly - do you REALLY like using a crap brush?
If you enjoy picking bristles out of your paint every two minutes, or dipping your brush for every 3 inches of painting, or struggling to paint a cr...
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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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Posted by Charles Budd on Friday, November 25, 2011,
It was the National Painting and Decorating Show on the 15th
and 16th of November. You knew that didn’t you? Well it was. I went.
It was fascinating. So read on.
Thanks to the Sat Nav I ended up in Tesco’s carpark,
scrambled down a muddy bank, under the train tracks, past a discarded trolley,
and at last into the doughnut. (The Ricoh Arena, Coventry)
As happens with these things, as soon as I walked into the
exhibition hall I was turned into The Prisoner – barcoded, scanned and
conge...
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Posted by Charles Budd on Sunday, October 16, 2011,
How do you get a lovely, clean edge when you're painting? Well, good preparation is key (it's very difficult to paint a clean edge on a bumpy surface!). A steady hand helps. I don't have a particularly steady hand - but with concentration and technique I can get an edge which makes most of my customers ask how I did it! But one thing that really helps is to overlap your paints; for example, if you're painting a ceiling and walls - first do all your filling of cracks and dents, then paint your...
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