How to Plaster a Wall

I am going to tell you the basics on how to do a re-skim over a previously wallpapered wall or a wall that has cracks showing through it and could to with some TLC.

First off let me tell you that plastering isn’t something that can be mastered over night it takes time and effort, but with a bit of patience, you could get your wall to a reasonable standard.

Right then the tools you will need are:

A plasterers trowel, A hawk (hand-board), a bucket, a trowel to get the plaster from the bucket to your hand-board, preferably a bucket trowel, a paddle to mix the plaster, a brush to clean your tools and for when your wet troweling your wall, but we’ll get to that later.

Make sure that the wall you are going to plaster has no little bits of wallpaper stuck to it as plaster will not stick to paper! also make sure the wall is dust and dirt free.

Tape over any cracks with scrim tape, then apply P.V.A to the area you want to plaster i mix the P.V.A two thirds water to one P.V.A, read the instructions on the back if in doubt.

Mix your Plaster with the paddle you could also use a piece of wood, but it is more tiring, you want the plasterer free of lumps and a sort of thick cream consistency.

Once your mix is ready apply the plaster to the wall, you should start from the top first, because if you drop any splodges onto the wall it will only go on the parts of the wall you haven’t already plastered.

Once the sealer coat is on (thats the first), you then went to apply the cosing in coat (the second) take more time with this coat as you want to try and have no cat’s faces showing (no uneven surface parts).

When you’ve applied the second coat give it one trowel over trying to get it as even as possible, then once the surface of the plaster starts to dry apply a wet trowel to it, this means wetting the surface with water i use a brush to do this, then troweling over it, the same way you would when applying the plaster, making sure to fill in any cat’s faces that may be showing threw. Do this sequence twice, after that your wall should look even, with no cats faces showing threw.

The last part of skimming a wall is to polish it, to do this just apply a tiny bit of water to the wall and apply heavy pressure to your trowel and go across the wall from left to right, this will give the wall a nice shin.

Don’t try a big surface area to skim first, start off small, some people pick it up quicker than others, be patient and you will seem results.