What I do

Painting, preparation and woodwork.

Four things, and the paint you end up choosing between. Inside and out, houses and premises, and enough detail to tell whether I know what I am talking about before you ring.

Interior & exterior

Interior & exterior painting

Walls, ceilings and woodwork inside. Rendered walls, soffits and fascias outside. Emulsion over plaster, masonry paint over render, and the right primer under both. Outside work goes on when the weather allows it: dry render, no frost forecast, and enough daylight left to finish a coat properly.

Mist coat thinned into bare plaster before any topcoat
Masonry paint brushed into the texture, not just rolled across it
Ceilings cut in and rolled in one wet edge so there are no lap marks

Photograph to come

Preparation

Surface preparation

Photograph to come

Nothing gets painted until the wall is sound. Cracks raked out and filled, flaking coats scraped back, nail holes and dents made good, then everything sanded flat and dusted off. Damp patches and blown plaster get flagged before I start, rather than painted over and found again six months later.

Cracks opened up first so the filler has something to hold on to
Deep fills done twice — filler sinks as it goes off
Walls wiped down after sanding; paint will not key to dust

Woodwork

Woodwork finishing

Doors, skirting, architrave, window boards and stairs. Sanded, knots sealed, primed, filled, sanded again, then satin, gloss or eggshell to suit the room. Water-based where you want low smell and a quick recoat, oil-based where the finish has to take knocks. Edges cut in by hand.

Knotting solution on every knot, or it bleeds through the topcoat
Caulk along the top of the skirting and down the architrave
Handles and finger plates taken off rather than cut around

Photograph to come

Homes & premises

Residential & commercial

Houses, flats and rented property, plus shops, offices and units that stay open while the work is going on. Commercial jobs get worked around opening hours — early starts, evenings or weekends — with the area sheeted off and left clear at the end of every day. One person on the job throughout: me.

Occupied rooms done one at a time so the house stays usable
Sheets lifted and the floor swept before I go each evening
Landlords and letting agents: whole flats between tenancies

Photograph to come

Eggshell, satin or gloss

Which finish goes where.

The three you will be asked to choose between, what each one is good at, and where each one lets you down. If you are unsure, satin on the woodwork is the answer more often than not.

Paint finishes compared: sheen level, where each one suits, and how each one wears.
Finish	Sheen	Where it suits	How it wears
Eggshell	Low · about 15%	Doors, skirting and trim in bedrooms and living rooms, where you want the woodwork quiet rather than shiny. Also used on walls in kitchens and bathrooms when a wipeable finish helps.	Hides bumps, old repairs and uneven timber better than anything shinier. Wipes clean, but scuffs show sooner than they would on gloss. The easiest of the three to patch or recoat later.
Satin	Mid · about 35%	Skirting, architrave, doors and stairs in family houses and hallways. The usual choice for woodwork in most homes now, and the safe answer if you are not sure.	Takes knocks and washing well. Shows fewer brush marks than gloss and fewer dents than eggshell — it sits in the middle on both counts, which is why it gets specified so often.
Gloss	High · about 80%	Front doors, handrails, radiators and traditional trim, where a hard shine is what you are after. Common in older properties and on anything that gets handled daily.	The hardest surface of the three and the easiest to wash down. Also the least forgiving: every dent, ripple and sanding scratch underneath it will catch the light. It needs the best preparation of the lot.

Water-based or oil-based

Water-based satin and eggshell dry quickly, smell far less, and stay the colour you chose. Oil-based gloss is harder and flows out smoother off the brush, but it ambers over time — noticeably so on white woodwork in rooms that do not get much daylight. On a north-facing hallway that matters more than most people expect.