How to paint light over over a dark colour

H

Hibernicatio

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I am currently painting a few rooms in my house (rental property) and have started on one. The existing colour is a deep blue and the others are also dark colours. This evening I put on the third coat of magnolia vinyl matt and to my horror and disgust it was obvious it was not enough.

I asked the guy in the hardware store and he said it was the only way to do it.

Surely not!!
 
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no pain, no gain. Are you using brush, roller or pads?

I have done cream over scarlet red with a roller (no watering down and applied heavily to the roller and not trying to stretch the area covered by each roller topup) and it came out perfect after the 3rd coat.
 
Use a good quality paint, not a cheap one. Three coats should be enough but it all depends on how good a painter you are.
 
Just finished painting my house, and after applying undercoat, tried many colours including 'dark' ones. I found that another coat of undercoat on top of the dark colour and then your 1/2 coats of new colour did the trick...
 
Well it would be unusual to use an undercoat on walls, surely? What kind of paint did you use, wickla?
 
Just a standard vinyl matt, not cheap or expensive.

My painting skills are fine as I had had plenty of practice over the years

Someone said that if I paint the first coat white that it would kill the colour below easier. Has anyone heard of this?
 
When changing from a dark colour to a bright colour the best way to do it is one, or even sometimes two, solid coats of white paint. Then apply 2 coats of your light colour and you'll have a top quality finish, you might even get away with 1 coat, but I'd never do that in my own home.

I use Fleetwood trade white emulsion as its coverage is excellent and its cheaper using white to cover the dark paint than it is to use coloured paint.

You'll rarely get a painter on a job doing the above (i.e. total of 4 coats), but if its your own house your doing do it properly and you'll thank yourself for years to come.
 
We recently did something like this. We bought white matt ceiling paint (€14 for 10 litres in B&Q) and rolled it on enough to take the sting out of the existing colour. We were painting an off-white as the final colour so it was going to be obvious if there were any missed patches. It all turned out fine in the end.
 
We repainted a room in our house last year - from the darkest dark green to white. It took 5 coats of paint to remove any trace of darkness behind the white. It looks perfect now but thankfully it was the smallest room in the house ...
 
When I moved into my house I used 2 coats of white matt to take the dark colours off my walls. Then 2 coats of the new paint. I asked a painter afterwards if there was an easier way and he said I should have used a light grey paint to dull the original colour. In saying that I have never seen this colour in the DIY shops. Maybe you have to get it in a trade centre.
 
I think most paint companies like Dulux and Crown make a paint that guarantees to cover dark colours ... I have seen it in DIY shops but I can't rememeber the name ... sorry. Might be work a try.
 
Henny Penny said:
I think most paint companies like Dulux and Crown make a paint that guarantees to cover dark colours ... I have seen it in DIY shops but I can't rememeber the name ... sorry. Might be work a try.
Click to expand...

It might be [broken link removed] but I've seen a few complaints about it not covering in one coat. I thought Dulux did one as well but can't find anything on their site so maybe they saw the light or got enough complaints about it.
 
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