Our newly restored 1930's front door

Standing proud at the entrance to our 1930’s red brick semi we have a stunning original oak door with leaded windows that we love. Only problem is, the door is south facing and the hot sun bakes down on the lower half of the door all day long. Over the years,  past owners have repainted the door using petroleum based paint for exterior wood which has the terrible habit of expanding and contracting in the heat and then eventually cracking and flaking. At the beginning of this project the paint was beginning to peel away from the door and it looked awful.

Enter our green hero Chris Jenkins of Blue Sky Ecological Decor! I knew that painting with linseed oil based paints would prevent this cracking and would also last much longer than petroleum based paints and Chris is an expert in the field, so we chose Holkham Paints who import from Sweden a whole range of eco-friendly outdoor paints.

Front Door Stripped of paint ready for oil

Step 1 was to strip the door and window frame using a heat gun, which is energy intensive but removes the need for nasty chemical paint strippers.

Step 2 Chris sanded and then treated the bare wood with some warm linseed oil

The Front door gets it’s first coat

Step 3 First coat of the linseed oil paint followed by filling any holes or imperfections

Step 4 Coats 2 and 3 of the final linseed oil colour

We are thrilled with the finish and so pleased to know that our wonderful 80 year old door will last another lifetime and we haven’t harmed the planet with nasty chemicals or sent anything to landfill! For any tips on painting with linseed oil  based paints contact our in-house interior designer Angie Kraft

Colour of Nature

I recently took the opportunity to test out natural paints in my son’s bedroom. It was time for a makeover and he has terrible eczema, so the decision was easy.

We needed a large wardrobe/storage unit built, as this was the smallest room in the house and free-standing pieces did not make the best use of the limited space available. Unfortunately, the only real option for this type of work seems to be the dreaded MDF board! We did our research and found that the EU now stipulate low-formaldehyde board (E1) that is much less harmful and we instructed our carpenter to buy the E1 rather than E3 MDF. We then noticed that ECOS carry a fabulous MDF priming product (MDF Passivator) that claims to eliminate the majority (99%) of the off-gassing from MDF. We applied the primer as our first coat without too much fuss and sleep a little easier because of it.

The walls were lined with lining paper and the chosen shade of AURO emulsion applied with ease. The decorator loved using the paint and found the coverage (8-9m2/L) a little less than everyday paint, but did not complain. He was happy to hear that the paints can be thinned with water to increase the coverage.

The sticking point came with the woodwork. Natural paints can be applied to old acrylic paints as long as the surfaces are well rubbed down beforehand. We applied AURO undercoat first and then a top coat of the AURO matt finish silk paint. The coverage was good and the paints easy to use, but the decorator was disturbed by the length of the drying time – up to 8 hours in some cases. Decorators have become used to chemically enhanced, quick drying paints that enable them to fly through a job, painting second coats only an hour or two after the first. If we are to encourage them to move over to natural paints, we need them to alter their work habits slightly, in order to incorporate longer drying times.

Pots of Colour!

The end result was spectacular! The storage unit come wardrobe was painted inside and out and once dry the natural paint is as hard-wearing as any standard paint on the market and the depth of colour on the walls is great. At the end of the job, all the empty paint cans could be washed out and put into the recycling bin! The best thing of all however, was the lack of the toxic chemical smell that has always accompanied redecorating. The house had the aroma of scented oils and why not, after all that is what the paints are made from.