Hi all,
Fairly new DIY'er/hobbyist here. Done a bit of bonding out, a bit of skimming on smaller walls and although nowhere near professional, results are slowly getting better. However. recently I had my first proper disaster when attempting to skim an upstairs hallway wall (my own house). Here is a pic of the wall before the disaster:
It is lathe and plaster which I understand would have been the technique used at the time of construction (around the 1910's I believe, give or take a decade).
As it is an older house I treated the existing cracks with easi-fill as you can see. Prior to skimming I gave a good coat of 2:5 pva and let it dry.
Area for plastering is approx 3.5m x 2.5m minus a doorway (off picture).
Problems started occurring during the first coat, where I had started (top right of wall, I'm a left hander) was already beyond firming up by the time I had finished the first coat at the other end of the wall. This went off much quicker than I have experienced in previous plastering attempts.
Being, on occasion, a massive cretin, I proceeded to apply a second coat and hope for the best. Things did not pan out.
Before final trowel areas were starting to crack, like snowflakes almost and rise away from the wall. Realising that things were not going to plan and would need a redo I scraped off about 50% of the plaster I had just applied but then lost hope as the plaster started to bond to the wall in some areas.
When the dust had settled I was left with a wall with some places with well bonded 5mm of two coat multi, some areas of bare wall, some areas of cracks and un-bonded plaster.
I guess the issue may well have been suction, the wall was bone dry prior to pva. If so, I clearly I under pva'd in spite of noticing this. Could have done with a few more coats I suspect.
I have been using a chisel to remove any loose multi-finish, but again, channeling my inner cretin, in the process sometimes gouging the previous wall.
I am wondering what the best course of action now is, barring paying someone who, unlike me, actually knows what they are doing.
I have two ideas, one is hack the whole lot off back to stud work then board and skim. Problems here include not being a sparky and not being confident to deal with the light switches but also there is a slight bow to the wall, unsure if this is due to untrue stud work or something else. Also means turning house in to a scene from an ebola outbreak movie to stop dust spreading.
Second idea is to chisel back where I can then somehow level out the wall. After it's leveled apply wickes primer or bondit to control the suction (they should do that if I understand correctly?) then give it another go at skimming.
Here is the current state of play:
Thanks for reading my tale of woe, I am keen to fix my own mess but would very much appreciate some guidance on how to proceed.
Oh and just to be down with the internet way of things:
inb4 "Should have paid a professional to do it"
Kind Regards,
Poynty
Fairly new DIY'er/hobbyist here. Done a bit of bonding out, a bit of skimming on smaller walls and although nowhere near professional, results are slowly getting better. However. recently I had my first proper disaster when attempting to skim an upstairs hallway wall (my own house). Here is a pic of the wall before the disaster:
It is lathe and plaster which I understand would have been the technique used at the time of construction (around the 1910's I believe, give or take a decade).
As it is an older house I treated the existing cracks with easi-fill as you can see. Prior to skimming I gave a good coat of 2:5 pva and let it dry.
Area for plastering is approx 3.5m x 2.5m minus a doorway (off picture).
Problems started occurring during the first coat, where I had started (top right of wall, I'm a left hander) was already beyond firming up by the time I had finished the first coat at the other end of the wall. This went off much quicker than I have experienced in previous plastering attempts.
Being, on occasion, a massive cretin, I proceeded to apply a second coat and hope for the best. Things did not pan out.
Before final trowel areas were starting to crack, like snowflakes almost and rise away from the wall. Realising that things were not going to plan and would need a redo I scraped off about 50% of the plaster I had just applied but then lost hope as the plaster started to bond to the wall in some areas.
When the dust had settled I was left with a wall with some places with well bonded 5mm of two coat multi, some areas of bare wall, some areas of cracks and un-bonded plaster.
I guess the issue may well have been suction, the wall was bone dry prior to pva. If so, I clearly I under pva'd in spite of noticing this. Could have done with a few more coats I suspect.
I have been using a chisel to remove any loose multi-finish, but again, channeling my inner cretin, in the process sometimes gouging the previous wall.
I am wondering what the best course of action now is, barring paying someone who, unlike me, actually knows what they are doing.
I have two ideas, one is hack the whole lot off back to stud work then board and skim. Problems here include not being a sparky and not being confident to deal with the light switches but also there is a slight bow to the wall, unsure if this is due to untrue stud work or something else. Also means turning house in to a scene from an ebola outbreak movie to stop dust spreading.
Second idea is to chisel back where I can then somehow level out the wall. After it's leveled apply wickes primer or bondit to control the suction (they should do that if I understand correctly?) then give it another go at skimming.
Here is the current state of play:
Thanks for reading my tale of woe, I am keen to fix my own mess but would very much appreciate some guidance on how to proceed.
Oh and just to be down with the internet way of things:
inb4 "Should have paid a professional to do it"
Kind Regards,
Poynty
