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Hi Guys,
Please confirm which paint would you recommend for the ceiling, wife wants to change it and I said leave as it is low maintenance and not been touched for over 20 years, which was Clear oil based varnished over 20Years ago and still looks good.

But the wife is tired of the of the ceiling colour, so I said just paint white colour using the kitchen and bathroom paint.

Would you have any ideas which colour to paint , as my wife said Grey to match the appliance and I said match it with the kitchen door unit beech colour or white same as the wall paint we are going to use.

But I said to her over the years we had few leaks in the bathroom, so there was no watermarks on the ceiling, where we would of have to repaint the whole ceiling and due to colour of the cladding which was red softwood and we only applied trade clear varnish.

Plus it is kitchen so cooking, grease mark may be visible on the ceiling if it white and I don't know about the grey colour, how it would look, as it may look dark.


My walls will be White colour, so if i did the ceiling white, then all will be White, otherwise ceiling will be Grey and walls will be White. Mrs wanted to match the appliance colour and i said the kitchen wall units or just paint it white and may have to paint every 5 years maybe due to grease, steam, which will be visible due to white colour ceiling.

I did a test paint on the Grey and white colour on the spare wood cladding.

further images

Well, I'd say "leave it as it is". Any attempt to paint over the varnished cladding will cause you problems in the future when it starts to flake off.

Why was it clad with t&g in the first place? I wonder.....

Take down the lights, fix plasterboard, skim it and then mist-coat it followed by emulsion in whatever colour you can both agree on. Colour/refresh easily changed later.

My take on this is that I would look at painting it white as a light ceiling will brighten a room that already has dark colours present. You could seal it with Zinsser Bin after carefully washing down with sugar soap and then again with methylated spirit. No need to sand, just very lightly remove any nibs. Use rollers to get two coats of BIN on and then whatever choice of top coat you choose. See my link below for more on painting with BIN as it may well help.

DWD

Hi Arco_iris,
Years back cladding was in and this was done 22 Years ago and now the lady wants to change the colour either Grey or White, so i told her to go for white, as everyone said white and even DWD said white will brighten the room up. I dont want to go through plaster and skim, if the kitchen was empty, then would of had second thoughts, but due to Arthritis , i dont have the strength to do it. I had few leaks in the past and due to colour of the ceiling never had any water mark stains, this was like low maintenance, Never touched the ceiling beside spring cleaning every year. But if i colour the ceiling there is possibility the paint may have the water marks, if the celling leaked again.

This was red softwood and been secret nailed into the joist, as beneath the joist is Grey plasterboard, but not skimmed and then applied tongue groove boards.
I was going for the option to sand down or apply zinnser B.I.N, which i have 5 ltr from my workplace, where i can use this by following DWD link, as this will be best option, as it will be too much sanding down to take the clear polyurethane varnish (Oil Based) been there over 20 years. Plus there is Groove, so this will be even hard work to sand down, so my best option is to follow the Link as DWD mentioned and apply the Zinsser paint and then apply the Dulux Trade Diamond Eggshell IN BRILLAINT WHITE.

Anything you are not sure of just ask. Obviously use a big roller on a pole for this job, you may have to do the grooves with a brush but the long pile rollers get well in I find. The first BIN coat can be disappointing but the second brings it good.

Good luck

DWD