Why Important
What to look for
The lower section of the wall was traditionally painted with oil gloss or eggshell paint to give a hard wearing and easily cleaned surface.
Large areas of flaking and staining are probably the sign of a leak somewhere and unless this is investigated and cured, then the problem will only return.
When to look
As accidental damage will always occur in highly trafficked routes, such as common stairs, it is a good idea to keep any unused paint for touching-up damaged patches if the worst does happen.
How to fix
As with any preparation, the walls and ceiling should be scraped down to remove any loose or flaking paint. If there has been a build-up of distempers over the years, you must remove these as they will not give a sound base for repainting with modern emulsion paints.
Any cracks should be dug out and filled before priming with a suitable plaster primer, along with any bare patches. Paint ceilings and upper walls with matt emulsion paint.
A modern alternative to oil gloss paint would be to use acrylic eggshell emulsion paint which gives a quick-drying hard wearing surface but without the smell and VOCs of oil paint.
Don’t forget to repaint any stair window, rub down and re-varnish the handrail and paint the balusters whilst the rest of the stair is being decorated.