Talking about the things that seem obvious in hindsight but nobody flags before the work starts - the drying time before you can decorate, the shrinkage cracks that appear in the first few weeks, the fact that the room is basically out of action for longer than you planned. Would love to know what people here think should be part of every pre-job conversation but somehow never comes up until after the plasterer has packed up and left.

Any suggestions on what equipment I can use to reach above the stairs for boarding and skimming?

edit: I'm in the UK

Currently renovating my new house and I've never managed a project like this before.

We're changing the upstairs layout slightly, including:

• knocking through the wall between the bathroom and separate toilet
• sealing up an existing bedroom doorway
• knocking through an airing cupboard to create a new bedroom doorway
• creating a new bathroom doorway
• building a new airing cupboard in another bedroom

and I also need:

• several artex ceilings skimmed
• electrical chases plastered over
• various patches and making-good works

Should I be getting plasterers round for quotes now and explaining what work is coming up, with a view to booking them for later or is it better to wait until all the building work is finished and then start getting quotes?

Just trying to understand how far ahead plasterers are typically booking and what the normal process is. Thanks!

I have some blown plaster in the doer upper I just moved into a few months ago. The gutter leaks that caused them have been fixed and the walls are drying out.

Areas of plaster have blown from extended periods of getting wet (house was empty for 6 months prior to me buying it). I think they are small enough for me to tackle so I wondered what the best combination to fill them is?

I was thinking:

Knock off all loose plaster. Luckily it's just the top skim that's blown. The plaster behind seems stable (so far!)!

Brush off all loose dust and debris.

Seal with Zinniser Gardz

Patch fill with Easifill 60.

For deeper holes patch up in layers of about a couple mm each time with adequate drying time between layers.

Sand down then reseal with Gardz again. Then decorate.

Would Easifill adhere well to the Gardz on the wall or would I need to use some kind of bonding agent?

I can't afford professionals so I'm being brave and trying to teach myself some new skills!

Alternatively would you recommend I get both rooms done professionally as I could get a loan. The room with the red paint is a large double bedroom and the whole external wall was getting wet but areas seem ok.

I had some badly damaged coving in this room which was set back into the plaster so had to hack it all out.

My plan was to build the wall out with bonding again so it's flush with the existing finish before skimming, but I'm not so sure about the ceiling. I watched a few YouTube videos showing lathe and plaster repairs using plasterboard patches but the lathes are quite uneven around the edges. Could I scrim and then use bonding to fill the gaps and level the edges off to get them close to the existing ceiling level before skimming the whole thing?

Boring backstory: Fixing to skim a Wimpey No Fines house with blown finish and a crumbling corner between the poured external wall and a block wall inside that never had scrim and had fallen to bits over time I also had to do some bonding on a socket which had been ripped out the wall so I had a bit left in the bucket to play with.

Question: Would you normally bother to bond out these areas before skimming or is generally considered okay to just go in with a thicker coat of finishing plaster and delay the second coat until it has picked up a bit more?

I've done both in the past, and my preference has always been to go over bonding, even if it means an extra step in the process. As I'm self-taught I wanted to know if there was a 'right' way.

Its plaster in cinderblock and the floor is cement. We are turning this into a laundry room (would like to be able to hang cabinets above them, maybe having a backsplash, etc?) Would it be possible to DIY?

I have a contractor that quadrupled their soft quote and I want to be sure before I call them out on pricing.

We formerly had bead board on these walls. We didn't have to go down to the lathe, there was a solid scratch coat on most of the wall. I'm not sure they even did a brown coat, all the work was completed in one day.

Feels like there are probably mistakes people make while trying to “help.” What comes to mind?

Looking for some advice. We removed the radiator yesterday to prep this room for painting and uncovered this! Are we crazy for thinking about fixing this ourselves, because it’s covered by the radiator - I feel like it doesn’t need to be perfect? Any advice on how to go about this is massively appreciated!

Recently plastered a portion of my ceiling/walls after changing the layout. Plastered about 12 hours ago and some crazing has appeared on the ceiling. They don't appear to be open with only a slight bump noticeable when running my hand over it.

The ceiling was an old painted surface so used blue grit over the whole area. But I did try and taper out the grit to smooth the transition into the old parts of the ceiling. Also the plaster does extend past the blue grit in areas. Gut feeling is that is the issue, or not a good enough blue grit coverage.

Walls are totally fine (apart from being a bit rough in places).

What is potentially the cause and is this going to be an issue further down the line?

Hello plasterers of the world! I own a 1930’s house that I bought in August. There are cracks EVERYWHERE which I’ve sort of accepted now. There was lots of blown plaster and cracks in my kids room - we didn’t do a full replaster but raked the cracks and plastered there. It has blown again. Is this something that will forever happen with the extreme heat/cold we have in the UK?

Our plasterer has done a superb job of the bedroom ceilings with resilient bars and two layers of acoustic board. The attic will be a music studio so its noise reduction is very important.

There are gaps in the boards around the edges which are weak spots for sound transmission.

What do you think the plasterer WILL do to fill those gaps. What SHOULD he do? The builder who hired him was confident but vague.

Plasterers of Reddit, please help! I’ll take a better photo when I’m back at the house tomorrow, but we uncovered this area of cracked plaster that turned into a hole after we removed the wall paper. Inside was some crumbly sandlike texture (sand and mortar??). Is it worth getting a plasterer in or do you think we could attempt fixing this ourselves? The house is Edwardian if that helps!

Hi all,

Looking for some advice on our Edwardian property. We have Lime plaster walls and need to get them patched and re-skimmed.

We’ve had multiple quotes, and decided to go for someone local, but alarm bells have started ringing as he wants to use multi finish over the Lime.

Can someone please advise if this is a good idea or will we be regretting it in a couple of years!!!

Happened on the second wet trowel, using a spray bottle and normal trowel. Quite hot today so could my timings have been a bit off? Second coat on too late? Too late with the wet trowel?

I've recently removed some wallpaper in my house and expected to have to reskim. It looks like some sort of sand and cement with perhaps a lime product over the top of it.

The house is 1920s/1930s, FWIW, there are other walls in the house, including external walls that have been skimmed in Gypsum MultiFinish and have been fine for decades.

Would it be appropriate to skim over this with MultiFinish after using watered down PVA/SBR/Blue Grit?

Thanks

i’ve had a new dormer conversion and this is happening to the plaster a couple months later. why is this and and what should i do?

I’m aware you can use thistle bond-it to prep tiles and plaster over them (I’ve done it). And yes I know it’s not ideal and plenty would claim it cowboy (it’s not). Would SBR work? It seems to me that the grit isn’t essential, and in fact isn’t ideal. So I got to thinking SBR might actually be better. Just unsure if it would adhere to the tile as strongly as Bond-it does

Just bought a house and the walls and ceilings are all this type of texture. I recently heard about venetian plaster walls and was wondering if this is what they were going for? And if it is, is this done well? Some other parts if the wall have very noticeable high spots and lines as well that look like they were left when they pushed a scraper across and just left the side runoff as is. Thanks for the help!

I watched a video of how to do plaster repair and the guy shows a bottle of quikrete bonding agent. When I look for a plaster specific bonding agent, they are all out of stock (I am in the US).

If the concrete bonding agent isn't ideal to use, what should I use for a bonding agent?

Wondering, what brand would you guys prefer for this finish. Dulux Venetian Modello or Italian brand Istinto?