BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Home Improvement Help Plastering A Wall!!

How easy is it to plaster a wall? I have a low budget and i was going to give it a go.

The wall is original brick work not a new wall.

Hope someone can help

Matt

Matt, I was just reading your post and I've done a lot of plastering but never over brick. Why do you want to plaster? why not paint.

I have an old house with lathe and plaster walls and I've done some extensive patching (several approximately 12 square foot areas.) A few areas of walls are just plaster over brick. The plaster over brick holds well but tends to crack at the edges more than plaster over lathe. Also, you need to make sure no one tries to put a nail in the wall not knowing there is brick underneath, because it tends to cause big cracks.

In my experience, the hardest part about plastering is finding a fiber to mix in - traditional lathe and plaster wall plaster is a mix of plaster, sand, and horse or ox hair. I used dog hair about 12 years ago and it's holding up well so far. My dog had thick but not smooth fur.

You can also use the thinnest drywall over the brick.

Hi Matt,

First of all I must say; do you really want to plaster it? A brick wall can be much nicer than a plaster one if you treat it properly. Some cleaning and maybe varnish will give it a great look.

However, you know why you want it plastered.

I�ve just finished plastering a hall way ceiling and it was hard work. However plastering a ceiling is more difficult than a wall.

It isn�t as difficult as it may sound, but it isn�t easy either. A little practice will get you plastering soon.

The most difficult bit (for me) was the smoothing part of the job.

Once you�ve finished laying the plaster all over the wall, you need to let it dry a bit about 2 hours (take in account that if you started in one side of the wall and it takes you 2 hours to finish the whole wall the part where you started is ready to smooth it).

You�ll need a float to smooth it. Experienced people use the same trowel, I tried to do it with the trowel and end up with a chunk of the plaster on the floor.

To smooth it you have to wet it, I used and old spray bottle (from some soap product) filled with water. And then just start smoothing, it isn�t a quick job it�ll take you long while till its smooth and looks good.

So good luck and let us know.

I agree with manolok, getting the flawless finish with no dips is hard for an amateur.

When working on a nursery theme I once covered a less than perfect wall with joint compound. I originally intended for it to be smooth, but realized I was out of my depth and did more of a Tuscan finish.