Bodger and Decorator – doing a bit of wall finishing
So another lovely long three day weekend with two available days to get as much work done as possible.
Friday and I would have loved to have started at the crack of dawn but unfortunately it was just too cold, brrrrr. The house had been empty most of the week and only the radiators in the main two bedrooms were commissioned, the downstairs circuit having been de-commissioned with a reciprocating saw some months back. The alarm clock went off early and I just couldn’t face it, I was tired from a hard week of work and it was just too blinking cold. I’d done this all week, getting up at 6:12 am, having breakfast under a fake fur blanket and dressing in the cold, looking forward to the warmth of my car heater, I just needed a bit of a break.
Storm Desmond was roaring in too, normally my freakishly quiet house is impervious to all weather conditions, I’d sometimes alight outside to find a raging torrent of rain, having been perfectly oblivious to its presence. Desmond wasn’t the same, it sounded like a small train going past at high speed, Friday morning and it was just starting, Saturday and it was blowing sheep into oblivion.
Anyway I had a bit of a lie-in, once I got up it was straight into all my work gear with thermal sub-layers and a large padded top over the outer layers. I was still cold though, so the morning was spent getting the fire up to speed, cutting up logs and getting the washing going (the tumble drier helps y’know) all before breakfast and then followed by a reasonable break to allow me to not see my breath when I exhaled.
Once the house was warming through I started on filling in the gaps in the newly fitted coving, this meant mixing up some Easi-Fill, pulling out the now rusty supporting nails with some pliers and using the dexterity of a sculptor in hiding the gaps in the new coving. Most of the gaps were a synch, I’d done a good job in fitting the coving and the walls were mostly pretty straight too, so that helped. There were a couple that presented some problems and would need a couple of coats of filler but there was one nasty job and this was filling the right hand pointy bit around the chimney breast. This took some doing, so far I’m on my third coat of filler, perhaps it might take one more to complete.
I think I’ve gone through this before, but a handy tip is to have a pot of water and a soft paintbrush to hand. Once you’ve got the filler close to perfect then a quick right-left left-right with a water loaded brush makes for a really nice finish.
Anyway this took ages, once done though it was straight into the other section of the family room to do some restoration work on the original fitted coving. This coving – perhaps it was elaborate enough to have the lofty title of cornicing – had been fitted sometime long ago in the past. It was lovely, angular, perhaps even art nouveau-ish, anyway far too nice to rip out. It had however suffered over the years, there were numerous hairline cracks and there were two nasty lumps missing, one which had been bodgedly replaced by a plumber and another that I’d sliced out to get a Laddomat cable into place.
Despite being a restoration job the theory was identical to the plugging of the other more contemporary coving. A bit of pre-mixed Easi-Fill, my trusty decorators filling knife and a pot of water with a soft brush. I then worked slowly around the room, the hairline cracks were plugged with filler by fingertip smoothing and then cleaned off with the brush. The bigger cracks were sculpted with the filling knife, a large lump requiring more elaborate help and was styled using a teeny offcut of plywood and then fixed into place with filler before being encased in a shroud of even more filler to mimic the angular missing bit of cornicing.
Both contemporary coving and historical cornicing took most of the day to complete. It wasn’t a job to be hurried.
By the evening I was beginning work on the walls, there was a bit of plaster that hadn’t adhered to the wall properly and this needed replacing. So a bit of bashing later and I had a large hole in my lovely plasterwork. Apart from this the plastering had all gone mainly to plan, the walls were good, the ceiling was even good too, there was a bit where I’d obviously let standards slip in the early hours of the morning but apart from that it wasn’t bad at all.
My amateur wall bodging tips:
- I would recommend that with the advantage of hindsight upon covering a badly finished wall it should be done with plaster, score the wall in those spots were the finish may be shiny and this will allow it to gain purchase on the wall and not come free. Don’t try to fill an entire wall with filler, it takes ages, a bit of plaster is tough too, but it will save time and give a better finish. Consider it as a skim coat and look up how to skim coat on YouTube, there’s lots of good stuff out there. Consider what I did and purchase the DVD “Mastering Plastering”, it doesn’t have every technique but it’s not a bad start.
- If a wall is only lightly marked I would not advocate using plaster, just use filler.
- Use Easi-Fill 45, it’s great and cheap as chips when compared with the stuff one buys in tubes.
- Fill big holes with a filling knife and some gooey Easi-Fill mix, scrape off and then brush over lightly with a wet paintbrush. Try to get it right now, sanding is harder than getting it close in the first place.
- Use an electric sander to even out surfaces and get them lovely and smooth, it also gets rid of any loose bits that might spoil your paintwork.
- For bits that are just uneven due to flaking paint then use a large 12” or larger jointing/taping knife. First scrape the surface with the jointing knife to remove any flaky bits of paint. Mix up a runny-ish Easi-Fill mix, apply the mix liberally over the affected areas (filling knife works well) and then with the jointing knife – one smooth action – swipe off the excess. Don’t worry too much about any proud ridges as they can easily be sanded down, but the beauty of this is that it’ll fill those map-like surfaces made up of lots of flaked off paint. A plasterer’s hawk is useful too, it can be used to scrape off the excess from the jointing knife and re-distribute it to the edge of the knife for subsequent applications. Darn it I need to video this, I need someone who can hold a camera and make lots of tea too. Again use a sander after its all dried out.
- I think it’s a great mix actually, plastering first in my own amateur way and then filling expertly afterwards, smoothing out the imperfections with filler and one can get a brilliant finish without needing a plasterer or three years of on the job experience.
- I tried plastering a full wall with jointing plaster, the end result was good but it really wasn’t – for me anyway – as easy as using plaster. It “went off” quicker, but the surface wasn’t as hard as plaster and it would clog up a sheet of sandpaper in moments when smoothing it down, there was just so much filler. The main disadvantage though is that it was really expensive and I reckon it cost four times as much as the plaster option. So the conclusion, plaster for skimming really dodgy walls and filler to fill it afterwards, or filler to fill walls that don’t need plaster.
Saturday and the house was now lovely and toasty, there was a raging gale going on outside but hey was I bothered… No sleep in today I had work to do, I was fed, dressed and fire on before starting work a nine with some wall bodging.
The walls were all a mixed bag, there were bits where I’d plastered with plaster, bits where I’d plastered with jointing compound, bits that had big lumps that needed filling and bits that needed a light coating to smooth out lots of flaking paint. Lots of diversity but one thing in common, there were lots of walls and a ceiling that needed doing.
Unlike yesterday I was more determined today, I wanted to get lots done so I cracked on with the filling and by lunchtime I was already doing a little sanding. A quick lunch and it was back into some even more heroic sanding, a fine mist of dust added to the mood and a left open door added to the general dustiness of the adjoining rooms. It was one of those respirator and goggle afternoons, perched on a ladder with a sander over my head, down on one knee sanding into corners and a bit of freestyle upright floor standing sanding. Just lots and lots of monotonous work washed down with some ear-splitting tunes that I could appreciate over the sanders whirring din.
Not my favourite job at all.
Sanding was followed by more supplemental filling and then more sanding, until I was mostly happy with the finish. There would still be further tweaking, trust me.
Some of the walls were still a bit wet and there was even a leak around the windows that would need further investigation. However this was a once in a year storm, I really doubted that it would be a frequent problem, however it did need some fair-weather investigation, I suspect a bit of loosened downpipe and the driving wind.
Once this was all done I had a little break and then as determined as I was I then pressed on with the mist-coat. Yes I’d reached that lovely moment of being ready for paint and putting down the first layer of paint. The mist coat is essentially a coat of paint to spread on virgin plaster, you deliberately water down a cheap tub of emulsion and apply it liberally, this takes away the suction of the new plaster and allows you to get a nice even coat with your subsequent layers. Now I may say “cheap emulsion” but I’ve found in the past that when one uses cheap emulsion it tends to flake off later when applying further coats. Personally I think it’s worth spending a little more and getting a huge tub of Dulux Trade emulsion.
Anyway when I’m working I sometimes listen to the Kermode and Mayo film review podcast, each of these takes around about two hours. Well paintbrush in hand I didn’t miss a beat for some two full film review episodes, around about four hours I reckon, when I finally punched my card it was 11 in the evening.
I’d not done the ceiling and I’d not done the wet walls, however I’d done enough.
Tesco Curry, all clothes into washing machine, bath then bed.
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