Painting over dark red

[dairyfarmerswife]

I've just found this part of MN and I suspect I'll be asking lots of questions...

For my first one, can anyone advise about painting over dark red? Our hall is dark red and I find it gloomy. It's not a 'traditional' hall, in that the stairs don't go off it.

It has red/orange tiled floor, and one wall has beams. It is an old, traditional house and we have a lot of the ILs furniture. I would like to try grey in there. We have dulux mellow mocha in another room which works really well.

What's the best way to cover up the red? Should I go straight in with the new colour? Or a coat of white first? I know its going to be one of those things I'm going to wish I hadnt started half way through! (MIL, who was the lady of the house before me, had a love of 'strong' colours. I am gradually obliterating them)

Tia

We had dark green paint in our sitting room & wanted to change it to cream.

First of all we went over the green paint with watered down white paint (apparently decorators call it a 'piss coat' ) then put three coats of cream paint over that. Two coats might have been enough, but I was being fussy.

It took ages but it looks good now & I'm happy with it.

That would be a 'mist coat'

But what finish paint is the red? Silk? Mat?

What colour are you using?

I think it's matt. It's not shiny.

Our decorator did light grey than White as the first coat.

I either misheard 'piss coat' or it's decorators' slang where I live. 'Mist coat' is a much nicer expression.

I think it always takes a couple of coats to hide it. Plain white is a lots cheaper than the beautiful grey/cream/beige that I have spent hours choosing, so I usually use white for 1 coat and then the colour.

Not sure why you would do a mist coat instead of just a coat of white paint, using watered down paint is much more of a faff. But better informed folk may come along and explain why.

silk is harder to cover, the first coat is pretty patchy

The previous owners of our house through alternating walls of mustard and ketchup red was a reasonable decorating scheme, see below. We disagreed. Thought a thick one coat emulsion would work but it still took three coats!

We later learnt about base coat with is white emulsion with extra pigment which is very good for giving a plain, uniform white base. We have sine used it to cover all their 'vibrant' choices and it has saved us a ton of money on the more expensive top coat coloured emulsion.

Yep, 'mist coat' is the name they give to posh middle class ladies! I've always heard them use 'piss coat'. It's generally used to paint over new plaster, where some of the paint is going to sink in.

I second Issy's recommendation of the base coat paint. Before we got together, DH decorated the house with feature walls in a shade that can only be described as 'bloody poo' and this was an absolute godsend.

It is quite noticeably more pigmented and one coat should be enough to cover. With a big area like a hall, you don't want to be wasting tons of paint doing coat after coat so whiting out properly with decent paint should save ££.

Three coats of cream needed here.