I want to create a paintable surface jn my basement. I am a novice DIYer and I kindof was told that plaster is the only way to do it. I was looking into it, and found these “plaster rails” (sorry idk the proper english word) that seems to me that they make the work much easier. But maybe it will blow up in my face.

I plan to fill up the holes between the bricks with mortar, then apply a primer and stick the rails on then fill the middle with plastet and use a striaght edge to make it smooth. I am probably overly naive but where will I fail?

I’m totally new to the world of plastering and have done a few hours of reading online now about plaster and I have to say, I’m a bit confused as to what will work and what won’t.

I have unfinished concrete block walls whose interior surface I want to finish with plaster.

After reading an article in finehomebuilding ( https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/drywall/hybrid-approach-lime-plaster)

I went down to my local Building supply yard and got a bag of Type S Dolomitic Lime…pretty much the only readily available stuff in the states and I mixed it up 3:1 with masons sand into a putty, I wet down the concrete wall in an inconspicuous place and trowled the mixture on about 1/8 inch thick and let it set up over a couple days periodically wetting it down.

Well, best I can tell it seems to be working. It’s hard and sticks to the wall and looks halfway decent…

Yet, I’m nervous before adventuring with this onto the entire structure because I hear so much conflicting advice about what will and won’t work.

The bag of lime I have says to mix with a gauging plaster but I didn’t do that. What benefit would a gauging plaster give me that I don’t already have with my simple lime mixture?

So, I’m opening this topic up here to get others input. Seems like there are many methods that work…as so far my weird one seems to have but would still like more experienced input.

I'm doing some DIY in my attic so I can donit up for my daughter. Once I rip this off then will it need plasterboard & then plaster or...?

I've recently bought my first ever house. After stripping some botched liner paper in the bedroom, the walls look like this. Very textured, full of filled-in holes, and have a few of these weird bubble things. I want to do this properly but as I'm new to this kind of thing, I'm not sure what the first step to do before decorating is. Is this going to need a whole skim coat or would just filling and sanding the worst bits be enough? What do I do about the bubbles? Or should I just put some more liner paper up and forget about what's underneath? Any advice would be much appreciated!

Hey folks — after a bit of experienced input on prepping plaster before paint.

Had a mate help with the plastering (absolute legend, did it for free), so no complaints — he did a way better job than I ever could. That said, after everything dried, there were a few imperfections that needed sorting. Possibly no other choice than to go in hard with sanding to level them out… but now I’m wondering if I’ve gone too far.

Some parts feel smooth, others have that gritty, almost sandy texture, like I’ve taken off the top layer of finish. I’ve done a standard mist coat (70/30 water to matt emulsion) on one wall, but it hasn’t fully settled my nerves. The wall still feels quite porous or inconsistent in suction, and I’m now wondering if that mist coat is actually going to hold.

So the big question: Was over-sanding the real issue here? And now that I’ve mist coated — should I still prime over the top (thinking Zinsser Gardz or Peel Stop), or crack on with filler and topcoat?

Just to make things more exciting, I’ve ended up with a fancy mixed bag of paints from Facebook Marketplace: • Farrow & Ball Dead Flat (one room) • Little Greene Absolute Matt (another) • Dulux Heritage Matt (in the third)

I know F&B Dead Flat is especially unforgiving, so I don’t want to waste time or money putting high-end paint on a surface that might not hold up.

Would love to hear from anyone who’s tackled rough plaster, over-sanding, and high-end finishes. Stick with the mist coat? Prime it all now? Have I already doomed myself?

Cheers in advance — much appreciated.

Just bought a new house which has 4 layers of wallpaper all over the place. Previous owners were here around 30 years so it’s in need of some updating.

Trying to take all the wallpaper down (with a steamer) so we can paint but I’ve come across this plaster underneath.

As you can see, there are a few cracks but also this hole which leads so some kind of wood underneath. Is this normal?

The main question is how should I go about repairing this. Is it possible to fills the holes and the cracks, prime and then paint over?

Does anyone know what kind of insulation this is?

I’ve taken off the skirting boards and architraves to replace and this was behind the skirting.

Looks like horse hair or something similar.

Cheers Fella’s.

I have very little knowledge when it comes to plastering so just wanted some advice.

The wall in the picture was plastered 3 and a half years ago. Is a crack this big to be expected or would they not get this big?

Thanks.

Well I found this lovely surprise when taking off painted over wall paper on my lathe and plaster walls. There is a gap from the top of the Cieling all the way to the top of the chair rail.

It looks like POs attempted to fix this several times, but it did not work. I found original plaster wall, some sort of glued on backing board, repair plaster, glued on drywall (16th of in or less?), wallpaper, and paint.

Fixing this is a bit mind blowing for me and daunting. Took my motivation for the project and yeeted it out the window.

Any advice and help would be appreciated. I did find mold and will be properly doing the abatement for that.

Ps. Veteran with TBIs and the lovely spicy sprinkle of ptsd. I'm just trying to finish this project without raging at a inanimate wall and having the local authorities show up at my door lol.

I'm absolutely stumped. Last summer into the fall, I used autoclaved lime, sand, and pigment to do the final coat on my straw bale home - two coats had already been applied. Things were fine; I was able to get the same color consistently, etc. etc. Suddenly (a week before I need to list the house for sale), the identical recipe, using the same materials, is giving me a sickly pale color. I have increased the amount of pigment (e.g. from 5+ tbsp to over 6) and it's not budging. WHAT? I'm panicking. I would even pay for a professional consult at this point.

I've got a whole in my old house in the bathroom. I don't know what I'm doing and am finding all the advice on you tube videos very overwhelming. I'm also on a pretty tight budget any advice would be appreciated.

Hi,

Does anyone have a copy of the following, LONG SHOT I know, or knowledge of where I could find them, one even just one?

Australian Model Unified Building Code 1970.

Gyproc Ceiling Plasterboard Installation Guide 1970’s

Thank you for reading this and any reply’s I may receive.

Have a good weekend, when it arrives.

Thanks. 🙏🏽

A mate and I are skimming out a house. Hes always sworn by PVA. Iave used SbR. I had the upmost of nightmares whilst his set went on slower, he started earlier,and he still got to work it nicely. I was madly pissed off. Yesterday I went back to pva- it was magic. This was going onto very old plaster that we steamed the wallpaper off first. It was the first time SBR has ever let me down.

This is the best picture I could take given it's a blank white wall. If you look closely the wall is plastered unevenly in a bubble-like quilted pattern? Since it's an even pattern I'm wondering why someone would finish the wall like this? And how difficult would it be to fix a wall like this?

Just a quick one. What's everyones best mix for sand and cement. 4-1 scratch 5-1 top coat both with Feb/ waterproofer. 10mm beads? Never used lime is it worth added in. Does it make it better to use gear/float up

Hi all, my old New England carriage house turned house in the 1950s had some significant settling on the second floor floor/first floor ceiling. All ceilings were ripped out and the settling was addressed with and added LVL halfway across the span. Its not perfect but is better.

I now need to replace the ceiling and am stuck between drywall and plaster. The quotes are coming back comparable and many are trying to sell me on the plaster as a better product. I would like to mask that the joists still arent spot on but also fear cracking. The house is old and has settled before... it could again? Is this rational or is plaster the way to go?

Thanks!

Hello, the party wall in my Circa 1800 cottage was damp when I purchased the property. See photo.

The damp appeared to have been caused by an old hidden Chimney that was blocked off when a fireplace was removed many decades ago. The air vent was also blocked and the wall was plastered over.

I have removed the old , damp gypsum plaster, and opened up the air vent again. See photos. The wall has dried out, and i want to plaster over it again.

The wall appears to be stone, or stone covered in cement. It is a party wall adjoining another cottage. Both cottages were built around 1800 or a little earlier.

Can I just used Blue Grit as a primer coat and then Lime plaster over the Blue Grit?

Thank you for your help

Hi all! Just curious if anyone can identify this plaster? Judging by the age and color I'm guessing some kind of lime plaster but not come across it myself. Thanks in advance!

Just bought our first house and the previous owner LOVED their own building projects. I've been scraping the paint off with the view to redecorate and unfortunately found this patch of badly maintained plaster and filler. The plaster and filler was falling off in chunks. I suspect the doorway was put in after the wall was built, they badly cracked the plaster, and instead of redoing it properly, just got a load of filler and smacked it in.
I'm at a loss of how to fix this. I can't afford a plasterer. I am prepared to learn as much as possible and invest in tools to repair ( although I am very aware of how difficult plastering is). Would it be best to fill in some of the cracks and then plaster? I've seen other posts suggesting chunks of plaster board but don't know if that would be appropriate for this job.

Also, I don't want to plaster the whole wall, the rest of the plaster is pretty okay and has smoothed down nicely with sanding. It's just this patch here.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Removed old wall tiles but alot of notched trowel marks remain.House built 1969 not sure if they used thinset or what.Plasterer said he would just go over it with base coat then finish coat.Will this bond to old plaster with old adhesive trowel marks?I don’t want it to fail in future.

Does this look like Artex and if so do I need to contact a plasterer or an asbestos removal specialist?

Hi all,
I'm finishing a new addition, I've got a ~400 sq ft area that I'd like to have some fun with. I want to try some kind of veneer plaster, but practically nothing is available locally. It's a giant desert of building materials here (north west AL, USA). I've read that hot mud (easy sand) can be used to skim, if a bonding agent is applied, and kept moist enough to cure. Has anyone here tried using that as a ~1/8" skim? Any other ideas? Ideally I'd try a lime plaster but I'd either have to pay a ton of shipping, or fire up the grill and cook the limestone myself, even though there's a Carmeuse plant just down the state. I want a setting type mud for shrinkage and durability. I know it doesn't sand easy, but that's a feature in this application. I've applied stucco a few times, but nothing professionally. It came out looking fine, I was very slow though.

A penny for your thoughts?

Hi all. The two photos show what looks to be damp on the fresh plaster (around 6 weeks ago). Its not wet to tough. It's very smooth. It's a little colder on the damp looking patches. But just looking for advice on what to do. It wasn't plastered over brick. It's a terraced house as well not external facing. Thanks in advance