Painting plaster Disaster!!! General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[Heatherlouise88]

I have recently had my kitchen walls and ceilings plastered. I was then advised to seal them using PVA diluted with water. Then i attempted to paint the walls with special kitchen emulsion and the kitchen with silk paint. As you've probably guessed the paint just peels off. Can anyone tell me why this has happened and how it can be fixed? Cheers :)

[polarbear]

Hi,
Applying a PVA to your newly plastered walls is fine so long as you are intending getting them papered,this is because if you papered newly plastered walls without applying PVA,then the paper would simply fall off after a few weeks simply because the plaster is so porous it soaks all the paste of the paper.
By putting PVA on newly plastered walls and then attempting to paint them is madness,the PVA does exactly what it is supposed to do,make the surface totally non porous,any paint that is put on afterwards(especially silk) as it has the lowest acrylic content of any water based paint simply cracks,or peels of,it is the equivalent of painting tiles with a water based paint.
The best thing to do is try a high quality emulsion with a very high acrylic content such as Colortrend or Zoffany and keep your fingers crossed,if all else fails you will simply have to line the whole surface with lining paper and then paint.
Good Luck and hope this helps.