by Catherine Lear

Created on: November 05, 2009   Last Updated: November 06, 2009

Interior walls can be quite a pain in the backside when decorating your home, how many of us take off the wallpaper with the good intention of painting the walls only to see quite a few imperfections on the wall itself. We then say to ourselves God look at the cracks and lumps, promptly go out, and buy new wallpaper.

Well if you are one of the few who say and do this, then this article is for you.

I come across plenty of my houses that look like this when my workforce come to re decorate a house that I have brought, in rare occasions we have to strip the old plaster of the walls and re plaster them, on most of them especially on newer homes that I buy we just sand them down fill in the cracks and paint the walls. Doing this though can cost me plenty of time and money. Fortunately, there is on the market a good product that will fill in the cracks and make the wall look like new, and it is easy to use.

This product is called Polycell smoothover. www.polycell.co.uk . A wonderful product that is formulated to make a bad wall look good. It comes in a plastic container although the tools that you have to use are sold separate, they will consist of a small roller and a tool that smoothes out the Polycell once you have smoothed out the mixture on the wall you will need to wait at least six hours before you begin to sand down any small little lumps that will be left.

To use.

*Open the plastic lid and give the Polycell a good old stir, you will notice that it then becomes a creamy consistency.

*Now wet the wall with a drop of water, I use a small plastic container that you can squirt the water. You do not have to wet the wall but I find that it helps the mixture so that it does not dry out to soon.

*It is time now to dip your small roller into the Polycell, dip it in until it is covered, now roll it gently onto the wall, do not roll on an area of more than a meter, as you will find it will dry out to soon.

*Now dip the roller back into the Polycell, pick up the tool that smoothes the Polycell, and with an arc like motion smooth of the excess.

*Continue to do this all over the wall, once you have done this leave to dry for six hours.

*Do not worry if you see a few tramlines where you have skimmed over the wall, you will find that when the Polycell is dry you can either use a small electrical sander or you can just use a piece of smooth sandpaper to get rid of any small lumps or tramlines.

*You will now find that you have a perfectly smooth wall ready for you to paint.

*Continue to use Polycell smoothover on any other imperfect walls.

One thing that you must do though with this product is to gloss paint any nails or screws that you have either left in or cannot get out, first try to get any of these items out. If you can't then if it is a nail knock in so that it is below the wall surface, if it's a screw, screw it in further again so its below the suffice now touch the top of the screw or nail with a drop of gloss paint, this will stop the nail or screw from rusting and the rust coming through the Polycell surface.

Using this product is quite easy, although it's quite expensive in Great Britain - it's 25 pounds a 5 litre tub you will be amazed at the quality of your walls, well worth the money spent.

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