2 x decorating questions

[Dr Murdoch]

1. I'm trying to cut in a dark blue wall with a white wall, so a massive contrast in colour. I'm not too bad at cutting in, but due to the big diffrence in colour, anything but dead straight stands out (see below), I'm considering using a low tack tap to mask the white, but i'm worried about the blue bleeding underneath and creating another job!



2. I'm nearly finished getting a little office sorted. The carpet won't go down for a month or two, and the hardboard is covered in plaster and paint. To make it look better I was thinking of light sanding it to remove the plaster and then putting a paint down just to neaten it up? I assume an oil based paint or a wood varnish would be most hard wearing? I'm thinking of the marks an office chair rolling around will make. Thoughts?

[Rebew]

Frog tape works well to stop paint bleed. You can also use standard masking tape then run a very thin bead of decorators caulk along the edge and wipe this off with a rag. A small amount will be left behind which stops paint bleed completely.

[OutInTheShed]

The floor should respond to a good scrape and a scrub with a damp pan scourer.
Sand any bits that stand proud.
You could then seal with something.
I'd use some water based varnish, because I've got a can of it that's old and a bit lumpy so no good for anything else.
Or just chuck down a bit of old carpet, or staple down a dust cloth, whatever!

Cutting in, find a brush that works for you and keep practising!

[LennyM1984]

OutInTheShed said:

Or just chuck down a bit of old carpet, or staple down a dust cloth, whatever!

Sheet vinyl can be hard very cheaply (£7 per sqm) so I often use that as a temporary covering. It looks decent enough (a lot better than it used to) and the leftover bit (once you have put down the proper floor) is always useful (I have a piece for the boot of my car to catch spills from dump runs etc)

[CoupeKid]

With regards to bleeding - the tip I've seen is to mask up then paint a layer of white over the masking tape, let it dry and then paint blue. This means that any bleed will be white on white.

I haven't tried it myself.

[PhilboSE]

CoupeKid said:

With regards to bleeding - the tip I've seen is to mask up then paint a layer of white over the masking tape, let it dry and then paint blue. This means that any bleed will be white on white.

I haven't tried it myself.

This.

The only way to get a perfectly crisp line between high contrast colours is to paint wall 1, allow to get bone dry, mask up with eg frog tape yellow, paint along the edge of the tape with wall paint 1, let dry, then paint wall 2 up to and along the same edge.

Can vouch for it having also done very dark blue up against white.

[Mr Pointy]

As above, like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I40P7N9KeXg