Minor Painting near you

Wall paint choice is mostly about durability and sheen. Matt emulsion hides an uneven old wall better than anything else and is the default for ceilings and living rooms; a washable or scuff-resistant matt earns its place in a hallway, stairwell or child's room where a flat finish will be marked within the year. Higher sheens, including silk, reflect light across the surface and reveal every ripple in a wall that has been patched, which is why they suit flat modern plasterboard far better than a century-old wall.

On woodwork the real decision is water-based against solvent-based. Water-based trim paints dry quickly, smell far less and stay whiter over time; traditional oil-based gloss levels out beautifully and is tougher on a much-used handrail or a front door, but it ambers noticeably in rooms without much daylight. Whichever is used, it needs the right primer underneath - putting a water-based topcoat straight over aged oil paint without an adhesion primer is a reliable way to get peeling within a year.

New plaster is its own case. It has high suction and needs a thinned mist coat before the first full coat, or the paint will sit on the surface and peel away in sheets. It also needs to be dry, which on a freshly plastered wall means weeks rather than days, particularly in a cold British winter.

HSE's position is specific: lead pigments were widely used in paints for homes, schools and offices until the 1960s, and lead was not removed from all commonly used paint until the early 1980s. That puts the great majority of pre-1980 British housing stock in scope, and the layer to worry about is rarely the top one - it is the old gloss buried under three later coats on a sash window, a stair balustrade or a panelled door.

The hazard is not the intact paint film; it is what happens when someone disturbs it. HSE notes that dust or fume generated by operations such as sanding and burning off paint is easily taken into the body by breathing or swallowing, and that people renovating old buildings need to be particularly vigilant. Its control advice includes not overheating leaded paint with blow lamps or gas torches, and keeping hot air guns and infrared equipment below 500 degrees Celsius, because it is the fume from overheating that does the damage. Where employees are involved, the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002 place duties on the employer to protect them.

For a homeowner the sensible route is to disturb as little as possible: wash and key rather than strip, avoid dry power-sanding old gloss, keep children and pregnant women out of the room while the work and the clean-up are happening, and if paint must come off, ask the decorator specifically how they intend to remove it. HSE also advises only stripping back old paint where it is flaking, chipping, giving off dust or particles, or presents a risk to children.

Government guidance on damp and mould in the home distinguishes condensation damp, penetrating damp, rising damp and traumatic damp from leaks and burst pipes, and is blunt that the underlying cause has to be assessed and addressed rather than managed by the occupier. It also states that the respiratory effects of damp and mould can cause serious illness and, in the most severe cases, death. That is a strong reason to treat a mouldy wall as a building problem before it is a decorating problem.

Mould that regrows within weeks of being wiped and painted is condensation on a cold surface, and paint does not change the surface temperature or the moisture load in the room. The things that do are heating, insulation and ventilation, and the last of those belongs with the draught-proofing guide. A mould-resistant paint helps at the margin; it is not a substitute for finding out why the wall is cold and wet.

A brown or yellow stain reappearing through fresh emulsion is a different failure. That is water carrying tannins, nicotine or soot, and it will bleed through any number of emulsion coats. Once the leak is fixed and the substrate is dry, a proper stain-blocking primer will hold it back where emulsion will not.

Preparation, not paint, is what a decorator is really pricing. The variables are how much filling, sanding and washing down the surfaces need, whether the woodwork is sound or has to be stripped and primed, whether the house is old enough that leaded paint has to be assumed and handled carefully, the number of coats a colour change will need, ceiling height and access, how much furniture has to be moved and protected, and whether the room can be left to dry between coats or the job has to be squeezed into a single day.

LokalMatch handles the introduction, nothing else. Set out the rooms, the surfaces and the condition they are in, add your postcode, and decorators covering your area get in touch with you directly. It costs homeowners nothing to ask; the pros pay for the requests that reach them. LokalMatch does not do the decorating, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone who replies, so comparing preparation specifications between quotations is the part that repays your attention.