Anyone done walls with gloss (f&b)?

[Sk8ergirl]

Farrow & Ball have a leaflet with a garish orange wall, lower half gloss, upper normal/eggshell... Anyone done anything similar? This is for a hallway so we shouldn't have a condensation issue. Thinking for neutrals though and looking for reassurance... should at least be harder wearing and wipe clean, no?

[minipie]

Hmm. I see the pic you are talking about. I think it's an interesting idea and as you say, should be harder wearing and wipe clean. But will be a total pain to paint over if you don't like it! So maybe try a small area first... Also, I don't know if you'd need some sort of special primer to use gloss on walls?

Do you have a dado rail to separate the gloss from the emulsion? or would one be right next to the other a la the F&B pic?

[Hairytoes]

The thing I would worry about wouldbe getting a smooth application with no brush/roller marks. Might be a pain to paint over after with emulsion if it goes wrong!

[minipie]

Oh yes, just thought, any unevenness in the walls would show up much more with gloss (I'd have thought) so you'd want to make sure you had good plaster.

Still, though, think it could look good if you got it right.

In fact, thinking about it, my parents' Victorian house has anaglypta under the hallway dado rail, which I'm pretty sure is painted in gloss (or more recently in eggshell perhaos). So this is actually quite a traditional thing to do.

[Sk8ergirl]

Quite correct Minipie! F&B lady told me it was exactly what Victorians did for halls over heavy wallpaper. Thankfullly plaster is good throughout so not too worried about that, but brushstrokes could be an issue as I'll be doing it myself. Hadn't really thought about worst case scenario and painting over it so thanks for bringing that to my attention! We have a dado so that would break it up, looks a bit weird with out it I think.

[soonbesailing]

Don't worry about painting over it (if you don't like it) as F&B gloss is water based paint so can be overpainted with emulsion (which is water based). Think carefully if you use different brand that is oil based.
The only other think to consider is the F&B gloss is really really high gloss 95%, so you have to be sure you really like that level of shine. Did you look at the finish board (not the colour ones, the finish ones) in the F&B shop.

[aylsham]

Interested in this as we have two dogs who lay by the wall in our kitchen so the wall is alway marked. The walls are stone, but pretty smoth render and in F & B Pointing. I want to keep it that colour as my units are in F & B Bone (which I love). Would it look odd do you think, to do F & B white gloss pointing to the level of the units and then estate emulsion above. It would make is so much more dog-dirty-proof.

[soonbesailing]

Aylsham - I wouldn't use gloss due to the high shine. Modern emulsion is the washable F & B wall paint, but you could also use estate eggshell on your wall if you wanted to (because it is water based) but it would be quite expensive, but hard wearing and washable.

[WitchesBrewIsMyFriend]

aylsham I was thinking the same thing as one of my dogs lies against a wall (painted white!) and scrubbing it is getting harder and harder to get back to white again.

Might look into the gloss or like soonb says f&b emulsion as it is a chimney breast and wouldnt look out of place painted differently to the rest of the room.

hmm off to look at website.

[gingeroots]

oil based egg shell is fab - it will look really shiny for a few days but will then look like emulsion .

[minipie]

Farrow & Ball eggshell is no longer oil based. I've heard from painters that it's a bit shit to work with. However, Little Greene Company will mix you any F&B colour in oil based eggshell. So will Leyland but I've had bad colour matches from them (the Little Greene one was a perfect match).

[gingeroots]

My experience of eggshell is just Dulux Trade ,magnolia no less .

[WitchesBrewIsMyFriend]

going to look for oil based eggshell paint.

[minipie]

WitchesBrew the Little Greene Co's is. Leyland also do oil based eggshell. Dulux/Crown probably do but I'm not sure.

[soonbesailing]

So ladies I have to confess that I work selling Little Greene and F & B and others, and yes decorators do prefer painting with LG, they often say F&B is rather thin, but often once they have experience of using F&B they are usually fine with it.
You can get oil based or water based eggshell by LG (which is excellent paint) and the colour matches to F&B are very good on many colour but not exact on all, but you also do not get the same chalky finish and those with a very keen eye will tell that it is not quite the same ( but that is a whole subject in itself!).
The secret re getting a good finish is to make sure (if using water based eggshell) that you do not overload the brush or overwork the paint as it drys much quicker than oil eggshell, so if you overwork you end up with brush marks.
The plus point with water-based is no smell, and no discolouration over time which can be a problem with oil based. It is obviously also easier to overpaint water based eggshell with an emulsion(although you can paint water over oil).
Afraid can't tell you anything about Dulux, Crown etc as we only sell posh paint!!

[teta]

I have used water-based eggshell on my kitchen units -dulux Diamond hard.The major advantage is that it dries really quickly,doesn't smell and so far with lots of bashes,has worn well [but does initially look really shiny and thought i'd been accidentally given gloss at first].I've also matched up F&B with Dulux Diamond hard for the walls[in matte] which is also scrubbable.Our house was painted in pea green gloss over anaglypta when we moved in and it was truly awful and any bumps or scrapes were magnified.Unless you have a new-build done by a master plasterer i just wouldn't contemplate it.I have painted over in F&B estate emulsion and it looks so much better.