Varnish accidentally splashed over finished painted walls!

Hi guys,


This is a real nightmare... I finished painting the interior walls of my bedroom a couple of weeks ago, but today I was using a Varnish Stain (color Maple) to varnish some rustic plywood in a portion of the ceiling... when I accidentally dropped the entire varnish can to the floor, with the result that the varnish was severely splashed over the walls. The walls were constructed with drywall, primed with a good, dark grey latex primer, and painted with two coats of Glidden 3 in 1 High Endurance latex dark brown paint.

I wait until the varnish was dry over the walls, and re coated the walls with the same paint I used to paint them, while the paint was wet the varnish stains were hidden, but after the paint dried the varnish stains came out again. The varnish stains now looks brown like the color of the paint, but the problem is that where ever the varnish was splashed, the wall surface became severely uneven; in other words, the walls look brown (color is right), but you can notice all the freaking varnish marks where ever the varnish was splashed all over the walls.


So I have some questions:

If I continue applying more and more coats of the same paint (after every coat dry), it will hide the varnish marks eventually?

Or will I have to demolish those walls, and start over since the very first steps of the drywall installation???


I AM GETTING CRAZY!!!


BTW, Since today I HATE with all my life all Varnishes and Wood Stains!

 

You should have wiped the varnish off with paint thinner right away instead of letting it dry. If the surface is rough, the only thing you can do is skim over it with a very thin coat of drywall joint compound, then feather it out with a sanding sponge. It may take more than one coat to get the area smooth again. Then prime and paint.

 

I did not wipe it off, because I did not have any paint thinner at the moment, and the temperature was around 85F with high humidity, the varnish dried just around 15 minutes. Problem is that the wall portions that are splashed are a lot. The varnish can was full when the accident happens and it was a big can not a small one, it was dropped from 8 feet of height. The splash was crazy. The bedroom dimensions are 16 feet long per 11 feet wide, the varnish can was dropped at the middle, back portion of the bedroom, the splash reached portions of three different walls.

By the way, this happened in a new construction where the floor is not finished yet, at least that's not a problem, but figure this out... now 3/4 parts of the entire bedroom's floor is splashed with varnish, and basically half of the bedroom walls are splashed with varnish. Yes, the splash was that bad!

 

Sounds bad. Well life is just a long line of lessons, some of them harder than others.

Pour paints, stains and varnishes out of their containers and into a smaller quantity like an ice cream pail (with hook) like this one, or maybe a smaller hand held cup like this.

 

The varnish should have been primed prior to painting to insure that the latex wall paint will adhere well. At this point, I'd sand the area in question. If the wall paint comes off - prime and repaint. If the varnish has changed the wall texture you'll need to skim coat [maybe retexture] first.

It's always a good idea to pour whatever coating you are using into another container so you aren't working with a full bucket/can!

 

Thanks guys for all of your suggestions, I really appreciate your help.

Well, the Varnish splashes over the wall in fact changed the texture of the wall, I was afraid of having to sand the areas and proceed with the skim coat process... However...

Good News, I was able to resolved it with an unusual method. My frustration was so big (a perfect finished painted bedroom turned into a disaster in a few seconds) that because I did not have anything else to lose, I decided to use my own nails, yes my fingers nails to scratch the varnish. The walls were painted with a Flat base and when I scratched it with my nails the varnish easily came off like if I was peeling a sticky glue off the walls. Then, I used a flat kitchen knife to carefully scratch in an angle the rest of the varnish but without peeling off the paint. After that I used my fingers and hands to cause friction in the areas where I removed the varnish and that made the areas smooth again. That left walls with spots everywhere, but at least the surface was smooth again, no varnish bumps, no texture irregularities, etc.

Finally, I proceed to re paint with two coats of paint and after the walls were completely dry, voila! the walls imperfections were completely hidden, now the walls are like if nothing happened, I was like wow, unbelievable this was crazy, but somehow it did work! Or maybe the paint was really, really good, I guess...

... Well, this is why I am not a painter but a carpenter!


Thank you a lot!

 

That's great- I had to do something similar in an apartment I was fixing up.... some goof spilled candle wax all over the wall and I had to scrape it off before cleaning and sanding and painting. Glad you got it resolved.