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semi-gloss doesn't look like any semi gloss I have seen

14 years ago

I am finally getting to the painting part of my "remove the wallpaper from the bathroom" project. It hasn't been very fun because the wallpaper was affixed directly to the drywall. Removal caused drywall damage which meant we had to go the route of Guardz, skimcoat, primer and we had to do a small amount of texturing. The repair job actually turned out pretty well, considering I have never done skim coating or any of that before. (The advice here was invaluable and makes me feel more confident about tackling wall repair in the future.)

The texture stuff said you can paint right over it and I wonder if that is the problem. (ie we didn't prime over the top of the texture). I used ACE Royal paint since just fixing the house up for sale and that sounded like okay paint for our needs. So far, just one coat of paint, so maybe the next coat will look more like a semi-gloss? I can't describe exactly what the problem is, but it has no shine - very flat finish. We have a room done in a satin paint that looks like a shinier finish than this semi gloss. It looks okay, it just isn't what I expect to see in a bathroom.

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Comments (3)

paintguy22
14 years ago
It could be that the newly textured areas are just more porous than the rest of the wall surface, so it will absorb more paint than the rest of the wall. It is normal for it to look dull there until you give it another coat.
Faron79
14 years ago
Yep...new texture repair areas are VERY porous!

* It's like painting over a thin chalk layer, which isn't too far from the truth...
* Semi-glosses are pretty sensitive to ANY variation in surface porosity.
* Your 2nd paint-coat will look lots better, since the 1st coat is "plugging more holes" (reducing porosity).
* I would've done another full prime-coat AFTER all repairs/texturing have been done. This way, surface porosity is greatly reduced, allowing the glossier paints to develope their sheen ON TOP OF the full prime-coat.

Other sheen-reducing factors:
Pushing paint too thin, so-so quality roller-covers, not laying-off columns of paint...leading to thin areas of lesser sheen.

(We go through LOTS of ACE-Royal where I work!)

Faron
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sheryl8185
Original Author
14 years ago
Okay, you know, I had that lingering doubt about the instructions saying that I could paint right on the texture.... I should have tested a small area first. I am not trying to take shortcuts but of course have already done guardz and a coat of primer - wondering when enough is enough already! :)

I will do the second coat today and hope I get a better result. For the first coat I used one of those foam rollers - made for doing a smooth coat. I used it because it is the right size for working in the small space of a bathroom, but I bet I would do better with something that holds more paint. So... another trip to ACE and maybe i will have this project finished!

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