House paint gurus - help a girl out?

[Spryte]

I am pondering how to take care of a paint issue, and I know someone here can help me out!

Our kids’ bathroom was painted by the previous owners.  It is very cute and cheerful.  But we are gearing up for a change, just because ... I like change.  Ha. It’s possible I’ll decide this is too much work and postpone it.

The walls are a pale, pale lavender with hand painted polka dots.  The polka dots are multi-colored, randomly applied, and vary in size. It sounds horrible, but it’s really adorable.  Each polka dot has had some sort of clear seal painted over it, I assume to prevent chipping, but that clear seal has yellowed just a bit  over time, and now bothers me.

I could just paint over it all, but I suspect the polka dots will show through - not the color, but the texture.  

Would a primer on the walls work to smooth out imperfections, like painted on polka dots?  Or do I need to lightly sand and then prime?

Alternatively, I guess I could touch up the area around each polka dot, but that sounds tedious and I’m not sure how it would look.

What do you think?

[Pawz4me]

I'd sand, prime and paint.

[BeachGal]

I would sand first, wipe down, feel the edges of the dots to make sure they’re sanded down enough, and then prime. Start with a coarser grit sandpaper, maybe 80, very lightly sand and then try a 100-120 grit. If the coarser sand paper is leaving scratches, try a less coarse sandpaper like 100-120.

After sanding, wipe away all of the dust. I also like to lightly run a tack cloth over the area right before painting to get the little bits that the initial wipe down missed.

[alisoncooks]

Yep, I agree. The texture will probably show through unless it's sanded. 

[Ali in OR]

I would have BeachGal do this for you. She sounds like she knows what she's doing! (I have no advice because I don't.)

[BeachGal]

I do love painting. After it’s all done and I can sit back and admire it. 😄

Almost every home we’ve bought (a lot), have been dumps that we’ve (meaning me!) have fixed up. Painting is usually the easiest part, the end of the line. After four years, I’m almost done with this place. It was full of roaches, bed bugs, silver fish and was just disgusting overall. But good bones, great location, very low property taxes and really cheap. Score!

I’m designing a van conversion project right now which I plan to do myself. It’ll be our hippy home on wheels!

[ksr5377]

I would sand and do everything I could to get them off the wall before painting.  A friend moved in to a home where the children had an adorable bathroom with their handprints all over it.  Due to the thickness of the paint of the handprints she had to sand down each handprint and THEN paint with primer and THEN ended up using drywall mud to smooth out some of the places that were still noticeable.  It was a nightmare she never expected when she saw the cute bathroom.

[Katy]

Another option would be to skim coat the walls (google “magic trowel” for videos & the tool of how to do this).  You still have to lightly sand, prime, and paint, but to me it’s easier.  Depends on the number of dots. You’d want a really good primer too, not one of the paints that includes primer. 
 

Edit to warn:  I do know one woman who loved the skim coating results so much she now hires someone to do all the walls in her home with a skim coat every time they move, and they move every few years. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Katy

[Spryte]

Thanks!  Sanding will have to happen, sounds like.  Hmmmm... maybe we will postpone this little project.  I’ve never counted the dots, but, oh my, there are a lot of dots!

If I tackle the sanding, I’ll come back and update.  Thankfully, it’s a really cute space for the kids, even without updating.