Launceston Town Hall

In February, we completed a redecoration of the Main Hall, Bar, and backstage areas of Launceston Town Hall. The town hall had received a major overhaul a few years back, which had included redecoration using Keim Optil mineral paint on many walls. However, the thin skim coat of lime plaster had cracked and blown in several area’s. We were tasked with cutting back the blown areas, skimming in a patch to match the surrounding wall and then painting two coats of Optil over everything, as well as re-painting the wood work – undercoat and Little Greene gloss.

The first problem was deciding where to stop cutting back the plaster, you could easily have scraped it all off! But I was definitely not going to re-plaster the whole place, so it was cut back to a reasonably firm edge. Keim do their own filler compatible with mineral paint, this was applied and levelled with a straight edge to keep the new patches flush with the surrounding wall.

In contrast to the nice smooth filler in the patches, the walls had an interesting “textured masonry paint” texture about them, applied I assume, in an attempt to hide the uneveness of the walls, so the first coat of Optil on the patches got a handful of sand stirred in. Ater that, it was a straight two coats of Optil, and then the undercoat and gloss on the dado pannelling and doors, and theatre black paint on the backstage. Looks very smart.

Published by: Colin Taylor on: February 23rd 2016