Keep original plaster or install drywall?
cnvh
18 years ago
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terryr
18 years agocnvh
18 years agoRelated Discussions
Ever so lovely textured paint over original plaster
Comments (57)Why is GW suddenly green? Or is it just my eyes? Hmmm... Sorry you don't feel well. Hope you get over it soon!! My parents bought a 1 yr old house when I was in the womb, then when I was 9, they built another. Sooo...I've pretty much always lived in new houses, haven't I?? Never even thought of that. I'm sure your parents thought they were doing a wonderful job when they were putting up that blue paneling! Gosh, I can honestly see that crud now. My in-laws have the white in their enclosed porch. We had a little of the brown in the kitchen, and a butt-load in the basement. It's all been removed, of course. Here I mean...in-laws still have theirs...lol. Some day I'm gonna have to get a picture in the kitchen and show you where the paneling was. It covered a hole, the hole was in the back of the built-in china cabinet in the dining room. My carpenter made a pretty cool door for it, out of an old original beat up door we found in the basement. Easy to describe, but takes me a lot of words, being as wordy as I am....descriptive I mean. You know what I mean Nineteen. ;-> That wall looks good, from what I can tell!! There's some really good masks, can't remember what they're called, but you can wear that when you're working on the chipped plaster, if you're really worried about it. Me? I rely heavily on the ignorance is bliss aspect of life...lol...just kidding. Long sleeves, pants, whatever you feel is necessary while working in those areas. Like I said, I had wallpaper, with some paint over the wallpaper, it all got the steamer. The foyer, up the stairs, the alcove, down the hallway and in the back area had one kind of wallpaper on the bottom, another on the top, with a border in the middle. Yack. Man was it hard to remove. Took me forever and a day. I found just one coat of white paint under, with a blue line, the line where the top went to and the bottom went. Let's not measure, let's use blue paint. Again, yack. I also had just scratch coats under that paint and nothing but the scratch coat in the parlor. But I used the NuWal, so it doesn't show. The sellers? There were times when the husband had to stop by here, and I'd ask where his wife was....she's out in the car, she loved this house tooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!! She can't stand the thought of anyone doing anything to it!!!!!!!!! eeeegaaads!! Did she have eyes?? We had a PLASTIC chandelier in the dining room! She couldn't stand the thought of me replacing that? And some of the plastic "crystals" were hanging by paper clips!!! I kid you not. The carpet in here, must have been at least 25 yrs old and wasn't showing it's age well.....she couldn't stand the thought of us pulling up the carpet to show the beautiful maple hardwoods?? Was she crazy?? me thinks so....oy....See MoreComplete rehab of 1901 house - drywall or original plaster walls?
Comments (11)Bill - Yes, fishing wires takes more time than stapling them to bare studs, but it's not going to be so expensive that it's more cost effective to gut the place. When you add up the cost of demolition and rubble hauling, and then the drywall and finishing costs you don't save much if anything. If you get hit with lead or asbestos remediation because of removing large quantities of old materials, it quickly gets really expensive to gut. And if you remove 'too much" old material, it becomes a remodel and not a repair ... which triggers other expenses. ============= Hoopersjudge - You will have to be REALLY certain what your plans are for each room. Get several estimates for "if gutted" versus "make holes", ask owners of fixed-up homes in your area who they used, and take your time. Take a survey of the walls and ceilings - tap on them, and push on them and map where they are "squishy" or sound hollow (plaster separated from lath). Cracks can be filled, loose areas re-attached with "plaster washers", and missing areas can be replaced. It's amazing what you can do to fix plaster, and if the lath is intact, replastering is not out of the question. It's tedious and strenuous, but definitely possible. The two rooms that are most likely to benefit from gutting are kitchens and bathrooms: one because the wiring and plumbing runs will probably need major work, and the baths because of decades of water damage....See MoreRemoving drywall from plaster without damaging plaster
Comments (22)Progress: And 1 inch of what may have been the original 1887 wallpaper. I like the green: I ended up using the circular saw to make grid cuts 12-18" apart. I used the multi tool to make cuts closer to the wall and corners where the circular saw couldn't clear. I tried different methods to pry the sections off; some were too narrow; some had too much flex. A 5" wide blade, hammered in and then pried down, did most of the work. Where the ceiling met the wall, I did a combination of breaking the paint and skim coat with a putty knife hammered upwards, and just cutting around with a multitool. There was only about a 1/8" thick bond to break through so it came away, thankfully, easily. I'd say it was altogether 10 hours in a 6 x 8 room to get this far--crazy! I definitely won't be doing the rest of the house. In most other rooms I plan to knock off the flecky balls and skim coat the ridged scallops, like Worthy suggests. In the double parlor, which has crown molding, I'll go through this routine. It's a great upper body workout! Some of the original ceiling is loose, so I'll be putting in some plaster washer anchors. You can also see where they poked holes to verify the location of studs. Those and the cracks will get fiberglass tape and patched. A little skimming, a little sanding, a little paint, and she'll be done. Of course, before all that, I'll do a thorough scrub down with tsp and water, then rinse, dry, and coat with benjamin moore calcimine recoater. Then plaster bonding agent to all the damaged places, and then fiberglass tape, patch/fill with durabond, knock down with a putty knife, then easy sand, then sanding, priming, and finally paint. What could be easier?!? Hope everybody else is having as much fun as I am this weekend! And yes, I'm saving a sample of the wallpaper for the house book....See MorePlaster? Drywall? Need help!!!
Comments (15)Thanks for the input Beth, and about the walls, it's been determined that they're not plaster but an older form of drywall. I don't think there has been any kind of water damage to them but they have sustained heavy damage from the last owners nailing in the wood panels. Holes everywhere... what a nightmare. And they're big nasty holes too not just little holes that could easily be covered with spackle. Like I mentioned before, with this material, it's been really difficult to hang anything without damaging the walls because whenever we start to predrill a hole, it's like it just turns to sand. That's why I am more on the side of tearing it down and replacing it with the new drywall. I feel that even if I scrape off all the muck and spread mud over the holes and cracks and make it look nice again, we will still have the problem of hanging frames and stuff....See MoreDruidClark
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