# Plaster Walls and Ceilings



## mxdsa (May 25, 2017)

Hello,

I'm getting ready to clean up and repair my plaster walls and ceilings. I've done a fair amount of research, but would love some input from anyone with experience.

As you can see from the pictures the plaster is covered with a thick paper, which is cracked and pealing. There are also some hairline cracks in the plaster. 

My plan is to remove all the paper, fix the cracks and holes, and paint. In the past when I've painted on plaster, once the paint dries it turns yellow. I probably wasn't using the correct type of paint. What should I use? Any other suggestions? I know it will be messy and time consuming.

Thanks,
Caleb

Images attached...


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## Sparky617 (May 25, 2017)

What is the age of the house?  Is it horsehair plaster over wood lath or over gypsum board?  If built post WW2 it is likely over gypsum board, earlier than that probably wood lath.  I'm not sure of the exact date of the end of wood lath though. My parent's 1900's house had horsehair plaster over wood lath.


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## mxdsa (May 25, 2017)

The house is from the nineteen-teens. Not sure about horsehair, but its plaster of wood lath.


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## bud16415 (May 25, 2017)

Hi Caleb and welcome to the forum. 

Looks like your walls and ceilings have a few layers of wall paper that has then been painted a few times. I just did several rooms in my home that looked about the same. On the walls I stripped the paper repaired all the cracks  and repainted the ceilings I put a layer of ½ drywall up, taped and mudded the seams and left what was above to remain unknown. 

You really won&#8217;t know what you have until you take the paper off and see the plaster. Then you can post pics and get suggestions on how to best repair it. even the hairline cracks will come back if you don&#8217;t tape, mud and feather out the patch. They will go away for a while with primer and paint but when the seasons change they will be back. Getting the paper off is a job some will almost fall off and other places it will need hot water or steam and lots of elbow grease. 

The plaster will need a coat of KilZ-2 primer then paint for the bleed thru you mentioned. 

Get everything out of the room and start pulling & scraping paper. Take a few more pics and we will help you along.


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## mxdsa (May 25, 2017)

Hi Bud,

Thanks for the welcome, and the advice. I'll get started on the paper removal and go from there, as suggested. Will let you know what it looks like underneath.

Is it strange that the ceiling is papered as well? Did you have that?

Have a great day!


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## bud16415 (May 25, 2017)

I might add now is the time to make any other changes you had in mind. Adding outlets or a ceiling fan etc.


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## bud16415 (May 25, 2017)

Yep back in the day they loved their wall paper. All kinds of people did it as a sideline job and many homeowners had their DIY paper table and loved the fancy prints. And ceilings always got a new shiny coat when the old one got grimy from coal soot. They loved paper also because there is nothing in those walls for insulation unless someone has added it. now would be the time to blow insulation in if you wanted that also. If it had been done you will see patches where it was done inside or out. With the paper still up I&#8217;m saying it hasn&#8217;t been insulated.


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## bud16415 (May 25, 2017)

Here is what mine looked like in the kitchen when I started pulling the paper down.  Post #6

http://www.houserepairtalk.com/showthread.php?t=17318

that room I shimmed and leveled with furring strips for new drywall. The other rooms were not as bad so I went right over the old ceiling with new drywall with long screws hitting the joists.


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## mxdsa (May 25, 2017)

Wow, nice work; looks incredible! Thanks for the ideas. 

I'm pretty sure there isn't any insulation. That's something I'll need to think about. Obviously I'll look into it more when the time comes, but - generally, do you cut out some of the plaster / lath and blow in the insulation, then patch up that area? You probably have to do it on each wall, right?

Thanks again


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## joecaption (May 25, 2017)

If there's no or not enough insulation in the walls and or ceiling, old wiring that needs to be updated, walls were never air sealed or fire blocked, please reconsider your plans and gut it add fireblocking at the top and bottom of the walls, air seal, run new wiring and insulation, and redo with new drywall.
Only thing I prime plaster with is oil based primer, it stops that yellow bleed through.


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## chrisn (May 25, 2017)

Despite what joe says, no way would I be getting rid of the plaster. Remove the painted paper, prep the walls, prime with Gardz and paint. I have never in 30 years had paint turn yellow from plaster. If you think it is contaminated in some way, then oil prime,kilz2 wont cut it, if you HAVE to use kilz then get the original oil, it's the only one that really works.


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## nealtw (May 25, 2017)

You guys argue about plaster, I agree now is the time to do plumbing wiring and insulation and 4" is not really enough space for insulation. The firestopping is important but that might be done from above and below. There is always some framing issues to look at. Even just moving the height of the doors to modern height if there is thought of modern doors
Any or all of this after the plaster has been repaired and painted is devastating to the one who did that work.

Repairing plaster with out looking at this other work is not practical.

If you go for all this other stuff, it might be more effective for time and labour to pull the plaster


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## bud16415 (May 26, 2017)

There is historic charm to horse hair plaster over wood lath for some people. If you have never ripped down a plaster wall to the bones you have no idea what a mess it makes of the whole house and how big a job just doing a single room can be. It is not real hard to add cellulose insulation with Class 1 fire rating to an old house like this and it is not too hard to pull new wires and leave most of the plaster intact. When you take off the lath and plaster you will always have issues in redoing all the trim work as you will have a one inch plus gap to fill. Sometimes in a really bad house IMO it is logical to remove it all and start over, but most of the time I would agree with &#8220;chrisn&#8221;. 

The trouble with horse hair plaster over lath covered with paper is many times people hung things from the walls breaking off the keys holding the plaster up and all that is holding the plaster in place in spots is the paper. Ceilings are hard to scrape paper from and gravity has loosened plaster also in over 100 years of hanging there. Ceilings are easy to skin with a layer of half inch drywall and a great place to run wires by cutting holes in it. 

Most of these old places didn&#8217;t come with electricity and were electrified 70-80 years ago with knob and tube. Many second floor bedrooms had one wall light with an outlet in it and that was it.

The very best way would be to strip the whole house to the bones and start from scratch, but that is often not practical in terms of time and money and labor and the good enough plan is good enough. When living in a house and taking on these projects it is normally one room at a time. You should have the big plan and implement it room by room.


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## Sparky617 (May 26, 2017)

There are ways to repair the horsehair plaster and to reattach it when it has broken away from the wood lath.  Here is a short article on it:  https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/plaster-repair-made-easier

There are also products that allow you to put a fiberglass mat over the plaster to allow you to skim coat it.

In an older house, likely with solid or wood paneled doors I'd opt to repair and restore the original doors and not replace them with modern hollow core paneled doors.  If you want to go to that extent buy a newer house.  

In my parent's house, we tore out the plaster and wood lath which was applied to furring strips on the real masonry building.  There wasn't wood framing on the three exterior walls that were a double thickness of bricks. The back wall was wood framed.  We framed it out to facilitate rewiring, plumbing, heating ducts and insulation and then drywalled it.  We had all the old doors stripped of the 80 years of paint and stained them and cleaned up all the old hardware and used that.  They looked great.


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## bud16415 (May 26, 2017)

I have used these with great success on loose plaster. 

They are called plaster washers. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BQP2YM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


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