preparing walls for painting

Preparing Walls For Painting – Tips for the best results

Preparing your walls for painting is the first step in getting a smooth, attractive, and durable finish. Whether you’re painting an old and worn wall or a newly plastered wall, you should always prep it before applying the first coat of paint. If you don’t have a painting background or haven’t painted before it is something you might not know. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to prepare different walls for painting that you’ll find useful for your home painting project.

Preparing a wall before painting

There are different wall surfaces that you may need to prepare before you start painting. The technique you use on an old chipped, and a rough wall will not be the same as the one you use on a newly finished and generally smooth wall with a plastered finish. Depending on the surface you’re dealing with, follow the steps outlined below when preparing walls for painting:

Preparing a plastered wall

A plastered wall is the easiest to paint, as the surface will be relatively smooth with little blemishes.

    • A freshly plastered wall will only need a primer and undercoat to get your wall ready for the first coat of paint
    • Use a roller to apply a primer, followed by an undercoat to create the best painting surface
    • Priming the surface will seal it and keep the plaster from soaking up the paint when you apply it. If you don’t do this it can lead to a lot of waste, resulting in more coats of paint being needed than necessary
    • Also, remember to let the new plaster fully dry before you start prepping to paint. This will be evident when the wall turns a uniform grey/pink colour with no dark patches and can take anything from 24 hours up to a week depending on the temperature of a room

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Window Shutter Room Divider

Lots of Different Upcycling Ideas for Your Home & Garden Discussed by Eco Solutions, whose range of products will make your Upcycling Ideas & Projects easy, quick and achievable. Upcycle An Old Chest of Drawers Into Something New To Match Your New Decor Upcycling an old chest of drawers that you no longer like or … Read more

Deep Cleaning

Home Use Deep Clean Ideas & Products Explained by Eco solutions

Whether it’s your oven, your shower, your bathroom, your kitchen, your floors, your driveway or your patio, our non-toxic Deep Cleaning Products will help you make these jobs easy and quick to do with amazing results. You may now be starting to go back to your workplace and want to do a deep clean before you have your full workforce back and our safe to use water-based non-toxic products will help you with all of these jobs and make it quick and easy to do.

Kitchen Deep Cleaning Products & Ideas

Oven & Grill Deep Cleaning Products & Ideas

Everyone hates this job and its always one we put off but using Eco Solutions Grime Go will make this job quick and easy for you. Take out your metal racks and trays and spray the inside and the inside of your oven door with Grime Go. Leave it to work its magic for 20-30 minutes and during this time you can focus on your trays and racks.

Spray your trays and racks with Grime Go and its always best to do this on a big towel or old duvet cover inside or take them outside to spray them to ensure you don’t get the product everywhere.

After 20-30 minutes use a scourer sponge and warm water to wipe the inside of your oven and door clean. For really hardy engrained grime use a metal flat-edged scraper to scrape away the burnt food or splashes. Wipe it clean and repeat again if you need to. When you’re happy with the result and all the grime has been wiped away using a soft cloth and warm soapy water to clean away any leftover Grime Go product.

Next, do the same with your trays and racks, again it’s normally easier to do them outside if you can and when you’re happy they are clean wash away the excess product with warm soapy water and a soft cloth.

Put your trays and racks back into your oven and put it on high heat (200 degrees) for 30-40 minutes to remove any product smell. Remember, Eco Solutions Grime Go is non-toxic and water-based so it’s completely safe for you to use in your oven and grill.

To make sure this doesn’t become a job that you dread, clean your oven with grime go every 2-4 weeks and this ensures it stays clean and gleaming and doesn’t need a deep clean with lots of sweat and scrubbing every 6 months.

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Non-Toxic Cleaning Products

Non-Toxic Cleaning Products discussed by Eco Solutions

Many cleaning products both industrial and household are dangerous to humans and to the environment. They can irritate the eyes and throat, cause headaches and other health problems, some of which are serious. Many cleaning products have overpowering smells and lots of colours and they can make us sneeze, our eyes water and our skin sting and all of these things should be telling us that these cleaning products have ingredients in that aren’t good for us. Using Non-Toxic Cleaning Products is the best option and they are easily available, preventing inhalation of toxins and chemicals, skin irritations and much more.

Some off the shelf cleaning products release dangerous chemicals, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other harmful ingredients including ammonia and bleach so always be really careful when buying and using them as they can be as toxic to humans and the environment as vermin poison is.

Some environmental experts are saying that the average household cleaner, perfume and creams contain a minimum of 62 toxic chemicals, all of which can be potentially harmful ingredients like parabens and phthalates. research has shown that if you are exposed to them routinely it can result in mild skin irritation and itchy eyes, or major symptoms like reproductive issues, asthma and much more.

To make these things more worrying, there is no regulation of what goes into our cleaning products across the world and neither ingredients or products need to meet any sort of safety standard, testing or notification before bringing a product to market. Think about the cleaning products you have used in the past which have a hazardous warning on, yet we still continue to use them.

Lots of cleaning product manufacturers claim that using their products sparingly and as per their instructions ensure they have no harmful impact on our health. According to a 20-year longitudinal study conducted by scientists at the University of Bergen in Norway it was found that using cleaning products can be as harmful as smoking 20 cigarettes a day.

The research showed that ”People who have worked as cleaners or done household cleaning for 20 years have reduced lung function equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day, for the same period of time,” says PhD-candidate Øistein Svanes, at the Department of Clinical Science, at the University of Bergen. He is the main author of the study.

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Upcycling Furniture

Upcycling Furniture FAQ’s discussed by Eco Solutions

Upcycling furniture becoming increasingly popular with new upcycling businesses starting and people doing it at home as something they enjoy and as a hobby. Our Upcycling Furniture FAQ’s will tell you everything you need to know when you find that first piece you want to upcycle.

Everyone wants their home to look amazing and upcycling furniture is a cheap and fun way of doing this, the options and possibilities when it comes to upcycling really are endless. Upcycling is a growing trend as it gives you the ability to produce unique one-off pieces which no one else has, giving the finishing touches to a room in your home or business, and this is why so many more people are trying it out.

Whether it is reclaimed timber or an old cabinet or chest of drawers there really is a beauty in upcycled wood as it can show its natural grain, markings of paint or etchings from its previous life. It’s endless what you can upcycle and the most stand out pieces are normally the most unusual ones.

There are more and more television programmes being aired giving people ideas of how they can upcycle furniture for their homes and gardens and inspiring them to give it a go.

With a little bit of time and by using the right products, you will be amazed how quick and easy it is to transform an old piece of furniture into a chic boutique one-off.

There are some important things to think about before you start and our Upcycling Furniture FAQ’s, Hints and Tips and how you can use our non-toxic home use products will all help you when you start your Upcycling Furniture journey.

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