painting beams and ceilings

[sunny]

Hi,

Some renovation work has started on our old farmhouse, after a long wait. Some rooms are quite dark so we'd like to 'paint' the beams and ceilings. We do not plan to put plaster boards between the beams. I've often seen beams painted in a nice white or grey in magazines, a thin layer which shows the wood nicely. I thought we could use a distemper, either soft or oil-bound, to get that nice distressed look. Also considered limewash/whitewash, but that is perhaps not as suitable, and it is messy to apply (we tried a couple of walls... the mixture was too thin and it splattered and leaked all over). Is anyone familiar with using distemper on beams? Or do you recommend a different paint? And would this be available in France?

Thanks

[thunderhorse]

You could think about a white lasure. Two coats will still show the grain of the wood, and further coats will progressively whiten and deepen the finish.

And it's microporous. Brushes/rollers rinse in water.

[NickP]

An old trick is to paint the wood with white gloss paint and while it's still wet wipe it off using a cloth or sponge with white spirit, this will leave you with a Matt "white" finish.  The paint sticks to the soft grain and rubs off the smooth parts, it may help you to experiment first with a spare piece of wood to find out the affect, and how much paint to leave on.

[BIG MAC]

If you like the silver effect that you see on weathered oak then this can be achieved by painting clean oak with 'Rusty water'  fill old buckets with lengths of chain, old iron nails, horseshoes etc and leave for a month of so at room temp topping up as needs be. The rusty solution you will get when painted on clean oak will in a couple of weeks start to turn it silver......dunno how it works .......it's a Norm Abram tip from the New Yankee Workshop years ago........but it works.

[sunny]

Thanks for your suggestions. I will be researching and experimenting. New Yankee Workshop - used to catch a glimpse of that show when we lived in Boston. Of course, then we weren't much concerned with building work and renovation.

[chirpy]

I HAD OLD BEAMS WHICH AFTER REMOVING ANY LOOSE DUST ETC. I painted witha good quality emulsion paint.

This was done 8 years ago and still there ,no peeling off etc.

Whatever you do ..DO NOT USE DISTEMPER  as if in the future you want to change to a coloured emulsion ,then there is every chance it will eventually eel off as distempers are not very strong to accept modern acrlic emulsion paints,.

I am a retired paint chemist who has worked for major American and european manufacturers and seen some horrers in my time.

Try a small area on a piece of old beam say in the loft ,so you do not have any mistakes in you rliving areas.

[chirpy]

p.s. the recommendations are for old unpainted wood beams.

 

However if ceilings look like they have not been painted for many years ,then they may have been painted with a distemper ....and in that case you will have to continue with distemper or wash off with water every little bit ,because if you paint over distemper with emulsion then it will bliter and come off in sheets!!!!!!!!

[Bugsy]

[IMG]http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p211/Bugbear2/P1000166.jpg[/IMG]

These beams, in one of our bedrooms, where already painted when we bought our house. Initial thoughts were to strip them back to wood but we eventually decided to leave them alone. They definitely make the room lighter.

The paint used is a mat emulsion.

.

[Chancer]

Can someone describe what is distemper paint and where it would be used?

What is it called in France?

I want to avoid it you see as I have already witnessed the effects of someones elses overpainting as AB describes.

[NickP]

Distemper is made from powdered chalk or lime and size, it sometimes contained lead and cannot be washed down, to paint over it you have to remove all traces of the distemper with water, very messy. I can't think of any reason to use it today or any other day

[bixy]

We had a room with dark oak  beams. Not sure what had been done to them previously - staining, varnishing? Anyway we felt they made the room dark so I gave them two coats of a white monocouche acrylic paint. There was some slight leakage of colour through the white which was not entirely unpleasant in that it showed up the grain of the wood. In any case it's made the room a good deal brighter, which is what we wanted.

There's a lot of nonsense talked about exposed beams. I built two bedrooms with exposed beams. Cutting the plasterboard to fit, filling, painting round, varnishing the beams - all of it a nightmare. Never again. In all the other rooms not a beam showing!

Patrick