Julian Cassell's DIY Blog

Zinsser 123, or Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 to give it its full name, is a type of primer sealer that can help with all manner of DIY decorating jobs in your home. It’s slightly different in composition to my normal ‘go-to’ primer, Zinsser BIN, and in the guide below, I’ll explain why Zinsser 123 is sometimes the best choice when priming and sealing surfaces prior to decoration. read more »

Which paint you use for painting wood can be a confusing dilemma when faced with the options available in your local DIY outlet. My advice is to bring things back to basics, as fundamentally, there are three paint types you use for painting wood, and all the options out there can be classified in these three groups. One of the main problems encountered is that paint, in general, is divided into oil-based (solvent-based) and water-based options. Generally, you choose one option or the other for your paint system, but there can be exceptions to this, as mentioned in the guide below. read more »

Decorating the exterior of your home is a DIY task that can range considerably in size, depending on your circumstances. You may literally have  a few small details that require painting if you live in a uPVC double-glazed unpainted brick home, or alternatively, re-decoration will be on a much larger scale if your house is rendered with wooden windows, for example. My list below can be applied to all outside decorating, but it is probably of most interest to those people with lots of wood, and lots of walls to paint! read more »

Mythic Paint is a relatively new player in the UK market, and they offer a selection of water-based paints for both the interior and exterior of your home. Okay, nothing too exciting in that introduction, but where my interest certainly began to perk up was when I noticed that all their paints contains zero VOCs (nasty chemicals), zero carcinogens (very nasty chemicals), are completely non-toxic, and have literally no smell. Now, there are other ‘user-friendly’ paints around, but none that have stirred up this amount of interest in the ‘trade’ marketplace. read more »

Doing a paint roller review has been on my “must do” list for a while now, and having walked around my local big DIY outlet at the weekend, I thought yes, I really, really must do a guide to buying a paint roller. Seldom have I seen, in my opinion, so much poor quality product stacked on row after row of shelving, and seldom have I imagined, so vividly, the problems that people will have when they try and paint their houses with this stuff.

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