Strange paint finish under artex.

[Alex]

There is only so much mintgreen artex a girl can take in a kitchen so I spent 2 hours yesterday afternoon stripping artex off one of my kitchen walls. It came off quite easily (a lot like stripping woodchip) but to my dismay, the lime plastered wall underneath has been painted with what looks like old gloss paint, which seems to be on a kind of varnish backing coat. I know the paint is not the modern plastic stuff, its a dark ox blood red from the floor halfway up the wall, then the rest to ceiling height is a kind of pillarbox red colour. There is very little original of this cottage, that is left undamaged and I really wanted to save this lime plaster, for that reason.
Does anyone know if this stuff is breathable ?
If I could paint over the top of it with claypaint ?
Or will the whole lot have to be stripped back to the stone and new limeplaster applied ?

Thanks,
Alex.

P.S. Its actually not the original limeplaster because originally the walls were just limewashed straight on to the stone but this was added at a later date when the inhabitants had a bit more money.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Have you tried stripping a small area with nitromors? It doesn't sound breathable.


Doors and windows open for nitromors though.

 

[Lime]

Gloss paint and old oil-based powder paints can be removed using a heat gun from off lime plaster.
I'd used a stanley scraper (very sharp) and use very little force.
Treat every inch as if it was the only part of the wall you need to scrape clean.
Don't think of the whole wall otherwise it will appear daunting.
Do not think it will all come off in minutes, it will take many hours but patient care will pay off with a lovely original flat lime plaster surface.
any slight indentation that you will make, no matter how careful, can be patched using Polyfilla.

Remember many old paints may contain lead and also many old colours were poisonous too.
Wear a face mask.

 

[skier-hughes]

I tried paint stripper, nitromors and klingstrip but were too messy. I tried a heat gun and found that to be useless.
In the end I did the whole room using just a stanley knife blade, well lots of them as they need to be new and sharp.
Main problem I had was cut finger tips, but it wasn't too bad and the end result was well worth it.
I found some areas came away like wallpaper and others you spent hour upon hour on.
I didn't bother with filling in the nicks, so many little holes, scratches etc in my lime plaster already you couldn't really tell which was old and which was a new nick!!

 

[Alex]

That was quick
I can't do the quote thing so please bear with me !
I did try to burn the paint off with the heat gun yesterday. The oxblood coloured paint did bubble a bit but not enough to get the scrapper behind it but I found it on a doorframe in another room and it wouldn't come off wood either, so I wasn't really surprised. I then had the bright idea of leaving the heatgun in one place so long that it would catch fire but it wouldn't even burn, what is that stuff made of. :shock: I tried the heatgun on the basecoat varnish type stuff where the paint had come off, when i dug it accidently using the scrapper, the heatgun made no difference to it what so ever.
I did consider the Nitromors but after hunting through the shed, found that I didn't have any, so its a trip to the local DIY shop. I will let you know how I get on.
I will post a picture when my teenage daushter gets ups and does it for me (Yes, I can limeplaster but not put a picture on here ). Thank you, Alex.

 

[Alex]

Update

Just come back from the local old fashioned ironmongers with Nitromors, a pair of those rubber gauntlets and one of those blades with a handle that you use for getting paint off glass. I tried with the blade thing but that just damaged the limeplaster too much. I then put Nitromors on the redpaint, it didn't bubble but after 10 minutes, I could scrape it off with a wallpaper scrape. I then put more Nitromors on the orange varnish stuff underneath that and found that could be scraped off to, only to find a layer of green paint under that, on went more Nitromors but it didn't do anything. Feeling disappointed, I decided to give up for a while and wash the paint stripper off using an old washing up scourer (the ones with sponge on one side and green scourer on the other), I was shocked to find the green paint just washed off leaving the limeplaster undamaged.
Thankyou to those who answered my post, because it seems that a combination of all your answers seems to be working and maybe this will be a help to someone else.
Off to have another go and take some photo's, Alex.

 

[Lime]

I'm pleased that you are having some success.
Just to clarify, I have found the use of a heat gun useful to change the characteristics of old paint.
Sometimes it is only neccessary to slightly heat the paint to remove it better, add more heat and it becomes stubborn again.
Experiment with the amount of heat.
Also spraying with water often soften the paint too.
If it was water based it will wash off.
Wear gloves when washing.
There may be a difference in the characteristics of the paint above and below the dado/chair rail line so be prepared to try different methods.

 

[chuckey]

I too, had this oxblood paint on lime plaster in one room in my house. I found that wetting it made it turn into a sort of putty and 90%+ scraped off OK. The balance I sanded off.
Frank

 

[Alex]

Thanks to Lime and Chuckey for your replies.
Had another go at stripping more of the artex off with the steam wallpaper stripper and out of interest tried it on the paint. The oxblood coloured stuff didn't budge, nor did the orange varnish/basecoat type stuff but the green stuff, which seems to be the bottom layer, will wipe off fairly easily after it has been steamed so i'm wondering if it could be distemper of some kind. The good news is that, so far, the lime plaster appears to be ok.
Alex

 

[robgil]

could be a bit late but are you wearing a mask to strip the artex? some older artex contained asbestos.
also if you find notromores to be a bit messy let it dry out, over night is best , then attack it with a scrubbing brush or if on metal a wire brush.