Painting over dark paint

sillysocks

Moving into a new house shortly, and two of the kids bedrooms are a dark blue colour. My two girls are not a bit impressed by this as they are still deep in “princess” phases so pink is more to their taste!

We cannot get a painter anytime soon so just going to repaint ourselves which will do for a while. The rooms will probably have wall stickers and posters on them so just going to go with white on the walls.

What I’m wondering is does anyone have advice on covering dark colours with white. Is there any kind of paint that wouldn’t require an undercoat, would love a one coat type thing but not sure if that’d cover the dark blue? Haven’t painted in a while so any advice on what product to use would be great!

mickdw

Don't be tempted to try to cover it in one go. It won't work and you will destroy the walls with a stupidly thick coat of paint.

Just roller it quickly for undercoats and let dry.

awec

Even if the walls weren't a dark colour you are not going to get away with 1 coat. Use a coat of primer first.

The actual extra effort in doing 2 coats vs 1 coat is not significant tbh, just need to let it dry between coats.

sillysocks

Ok, had suspected that would be the case but was hoping for some miracle product to sort it out as they are two quite big bedrooms!

Thanks for the replies.

So would one coat of primer and one coat of white paint do the trick?

looksee

I also had dark blue walls to contend with and I can promise you that you will not cover with one coat of anything. I'd say you will need three. Ours got 2 and even though I asked them to do it again they were doing the whole house and I didn't realise till too late that the third coat had not been applied. Its not too bad but would look better with another coat. I may do it myself sometime.

Meantime I heard a tip that I have not tried but I'll pass it on for what it is worth. If you do the first coat with a light yellow/cream rather than white you will get better coverage.

In a previous house I had a painter cover a room that my teenage daughter had chosen the colours - a dark blue and a dark purple - I did say teen! Anyway a painter came in and put on three coats of paint at very high speed and dried with the aid of fans. He put on 3 expert coats between 8am and 3pm and it looked great! I think he did 2 coats of white and one of whatever Magnolia-type colour.

romaderwdcsax

Unless there is a gloss level sheen off the paint, no need for a primer.

3 coats of white will be needed over a very dark colour to cover properly.

Use ralston, colourtrend or Dulux, avoid any cheap brands as coverage wouldn’t be great.

macvin

The first white coat can literally be slapped on and won't take much time at all.

Then a second coat of a nice "princess" colour.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119176685#Comment_119176685

I'd say 3 coats.

Are you painting the ceiling white too? If the walls and ceiling are the same colour then cutting in is easy and the job is a quick one. Longest part will be the prep.

Rollering a room takes no time at all.

ec_pc

From experience, painting a child's room that had dark blue walls, it took 5 coats of dulux white matt emulsion to remove any traces of the blue. We wanted white as the new colour. Worth spending the time to get it right, nothing worse than looking at a shoddy paint job.

sillysocks

Thanks all, looks like a long week of painting ahead!

thanks for the advice. Will get some proper brand paint, and give it a few coats. The ceilings are already white so hadn’t thought about that making it slightly easier because we won’t have to be so careful at the edges.

mickdw

Don't be tempted to just leave the ceilings.

If all going white, paint all the corners, ceiling to wall junctions, around light, around switches with a brush then roller everything in no time.