Painting woodwork and panelling

Skirting boards, door architraves, dado rails, half-height wainscot or full-height panelling: painted wood draws the room. Our Multi-Surface Eggshell (15% sheen) is the classic woodwork finish, soft and hard-wearing; Satin (40%) catches a little more light, Gloss (85%) brings back the lacquer of old houses, and Multi-Surface Dead Matt (5%) lets you drench walls and woodwork in one unbroken colour. All four go over our Multi-Surface Primer.

Two approaches always work: woodwork a tone deeper than the wall, Artillery Ground or Pleasure Gardens Green under a stone-coloured wall; or the colour drench, walls, skirtings and panelling all in one shade such as Museum or Blueprint. The colours below are the ones that age best on wood: stones, grey-greens, deep blues and warm browns.

Recommended finishes

Woodwork & panelling

Multi-Surface Dead Matt Multi-Surface Eggshell Multi-Surface Satin Multi-Surface Gloss

Also suitable: Metallic Paint

Primer

Multi-Surface Primer

Our advice

Woodwork and panelling, done well

The secret of woodwork without brush marks: a fine sanding, a tinted undercoat and thin coats laid off along the grain.

The right undercoat tone saves two coats of topcoat.

Prepare

Sand, fill, undercoat

On sound, previously painted woodwork, sanding with 180 grit is enough to break the shine; on bare wood, sand with 120 then 180 and apply our Multi-Surface Primer in the tone matched to your colour (white, light or dark): a deep shade such as Downing Street covers in two coats over a dark undercoat, four over a white one.

Fill nail holes and the open joint between skirting and wall with acrylic caulk, smoothed with a damp finger, and let it dry before painting. Knots in resinous softwood need a dab of knotting solution, or they will bleed yellow through a pale colour.

Artillery Ground on the wainscot, Charterhouse above the dado rail.

Paint

Lay the paint off along the grain

Take a flat synthetic brush of 40 to 50 mm, load it moderately and apply the Eggshell in cross-hatched strokes, then lay it off in one light stroke along the grain, never going back over an area that has begun to set. On panelled wainscot, paint the mouldings and panels first, then the horizontal rails, and finish with the vertical stiles.

Two thin coats, 3–4 hours apart, with a very light rub with 320 grit between them: that is where the smooth surface comes from. For colour, woodwork two or three tones deeper than the wall, Egyptian Grey under Cadogan Stone, Maritime under Hawksmoor, gives the room structure without weight.