Repairing lath and plaster walls

[rufusgti]

Can any keen DIY'ers help me out with my redecoration. The main bedroom has woodchip wall paper thats peeling sagging and tearing. It looks awfull. It's hiding lath and plaster walls that are in even worse condition. Large cracks, crumbly, generally horrible.

Options?
My father says to pva glue, and pin back the paper where its peeling and re paint over it. this will work as I've done it before but it doesnt look good.

What other options are there. How do repair the walls to a good smooth finnish. Do they just need re skimming or will i have to hack off the original plaster. What about overboarding. Do I need to hack off to overboard or just dot n dab straight on.

Thanks for any help.

[mgtony]

Ideally I'd hack off the old plaster and laths, plasterboard then skim. Ceilings are normally okay to overboard, but I wouldn't do it to walls because of the extra thickness when you come to door frames and windows, It would also need screwing,not dot and dabbing!

[DJFish]

In our house I ripped it all out, insulated the void & screwed on plasterboard which was then skimmed.
Before:

After:

[Wings]

Hack off just the loose, flaking plaster, then screw plasterboard over and then skim

[B17NNS]

Hack off the plaster, remove the lathes, board (screw), scrim the joints and skim.

[TrevorH]

After wasting many hours repairing lath & plaster walls I'd say it's far quicker and easier to take it all off and board, as the others have said above. Just be sure to wear a mask when pulling it down.

[Autopilot]

I've just done a similar thing. I had years worth of wallpapers, lining papers, paints, anaglypta and all sorts everywhere in my new place. I figured I wouldn't be happy with the finish unless it was pretty perfect, so I spent every weekend for some time stripping it all back in order for it to be replastered. Due to the age of the property, just ripping a few bits of lining paper off did actually lead to the Lime mortar / cement just falling away from the walls and exposing brick work in a number of places...most walls infact!

The plasterer overboarded all the ceilings, used the coarse cement based plaster to fix the walls where all the mortar had come away, and the whole place was skimmed. It took a while to do all the preparation, but the finish is perfect, so in my opinion, I'd say overboarding for ceilings is fine, but you want a plasterer to fix the walls up. It will look great when done this way

[CO2000]

rufusgti said:

Can any keen DIY'ers help me out with my redecoration. The main bedroom has woodchip wall paper thats peeling sagging and tearing. It looks awfull. It's hiding lath and plaster walls that are in even worse condition. Large cracks, crumbly, generally horrible.

Options?
My father says to pva glue, and pin back the paper where its peeling and re paint over it. this will work as I've done it before but it doesnt look good.

What other options are there. How do repair the walls to a good smooth finnish. Do they just need re skimming or will i have to hack off the original plaster. What about overboarding. Do I need to hack off to overboard or just dot n dab straight on.

Thanks for any help.

I had to do a similar thing,

Please post some pic's cheers.

[polishingpeanuts]

Probably too late now but.....if not, here is my guide for lath and plaster, a step by step guide based on 25 years experience working with the stuff! Don't worry, there's nothing for sale, just info and even 10 different ways to repair your lath and plasterwork, depending on your budget and the look you want.

Hope its useful.

[neil_bolton]

I overboarded a hole in our lathe and plaster ceiling that I had to fix in our nursery and skimmed it myself. For a first attempt ever, it didn't come out too badly at all.

[Meeja]

polishingpeanuts said:

Probably too late now but.....if not, here is my guide for lath and plaster, a step by step guide based on 25 years experience working with the stuff! Don't worry, there's nothing for sale, just info and even 10 different ways to repair your lath and plasterwork, depending on your budget and the look you want.

Hope its useful.

Firstly, welcome to PH!

Your site is a very useful read.... I have a lath and plaster wall that I need to remove (am turning an old airing cupboard into a wardrobe, and am moving the door opening from one wall to another)


Am now planning to get hold of a shedload of heavy duty polythene sheeting to seal the room off entirely before I start!

[polishingpeanuts]

Meeja said:

Firstly, welcome to PH!

(Ta very muchly!)

Am now planning to get hold of a shedload of heavy duty polythene sheeting to seal the room off entirely before I start!

Good idea Meeja because it can get like this.......