How to Patch and Plaster Walls in Your Old House

hi this is Ron Tanner from house love and today we're going to talk about patching plaster walls in an old house these are walls that are made of lath and plaster now we received a lot of emails from readers over the last year asking for this advice and so we're going to give you some tips and pointers this is not high-end plaster work this is very basic stuff anybody can do it and we're going to start with very simple tools a stiff trowel short we're going to mix with this and a fairly stiff larger trial we're going to apply with this like so also you'll need a drill one and a half inch sheetrock screws some scrap sheetrock also a small spray bottle small is important small mixing bucket for your plaster and a bag of patching plaster so let's get started whenever you strip wallpaper from an old wall the wall it's going to be pitted there'll be spalling there'll be some disintegrated plaster also you will have punched holes in the wall for electrical lines outlets switches and these big holes you need to patch with sheetrock that's the easiest way to do it and sheetrock comes in four thicknesses 1/4 inch to 5/8 inch I'm using 1/2 inch and 3/8 inch that's usually good enough for patching now let's cut this stuff you need a straight edge and also a razor knife and we're going to cut a big piece off first because it's easy to cut from side to side from edge to edge and we'll use a straight edge and a razor nice knife or box cutter all we're doing is slicing through the paper we're not trying to slice to the entire piece of plaster we're going to punch in the back like that to break the seal and then we're going to slice the backside again only through the paper and the sheetrock separates easily let's do that again I need the piece on the right little piece for a bigger piece so again straight edge use your razor cutter all we're doing is cutting through the paper and then we're going to punch it in the back like so and raise your knife again just down the seam and you have your piece of patch sheetrock now let's put this in place all we need our couple of those sheetrock screws and all I'm doing with the sheetrock here and this patch is putting in place just to sheetrock screws will do and when you screw that sheetrock screw down you want to break the paper you just want to have that head just below the paper so that it's depressed a bit this plaster will fill that in on the left side I'm going to look for a piece of laughs and I'm going to miss it on the first try that I'm going to get it on the second again we're just putting this patch in place the plaster itself is going to make this firm and strong not the sheetrock screws now let's talk about the plaster do not get the plastic buckets spackling that's too weak it's not strong enough you want the stuff that comes powdered in a big bag it's called joint compound comes in various grades and what we want is the one that sets up in 20 minutes you'll see the 20 there you can get stuff that sets up as quickly as 5 as long as 60 but 20 minutes gives us enough time let's talk about mixing this plaster I'm using about half of a finger worth maybe half an inch and inch follow the instructions on the bag I just do it by feel now because I've done it so much but notice that a little water goes a long way this water keeps absorbing the plaster again and again and again so you going to see me add a lot of plaster to this water now if the mix is too loose too wet it will it will be really messy really hard to work with and it won't set up well it won't be very strong if it's too dry it'll it will you know too thick it will dry too quickly and if it dries too quickly your plaster will so we're trying to get it just the right consistency right consistency is kind of like pudding we've got to get all the lumps and bumps out of it so you want to mix it really well and you'll see with the mix that I had here it's kind of like pudding and I don't want it any wetter than this sometimes I mix it little dry if I want it to dry a little more quickly if you want you're faster to drive less quickly you can mix it with cold water that will slow down the set-up time let's return to the patch notice the first thing I'm going to do is spritz the area with the small spray bottle you got to keep your work area moost because otherwise of the wall and the patch are too dry they will absorb the moisture from your wet plaster and your plaster will dry too quickly and it will crack so we want to keep that spray bottle handy and it will make your work go a lot more quickly it also we use a small spray bottle instead of a larger one because they're easy to handle but also the large ones break because they're too bottom heavy and the top often breaks off as you see here I am filling in the big the deep gashes I'm not I'm not combing over the patch yet main thing I want to do here is just get the patch set up it's really easy work at this points nothing nothing big to it the main thing is is I want to keep everything flush with the wall so filling in the deep parts the primary thing you need to know about patching walls one time will not do it you're going to have to do this like four times you have to go over this four times so all I'm doing now is just doing the base work and now I'm working away from the patch to fill in the rest of the seam and the big cracks that's what I'm going to do then I'm going to let this dry it sets up in 20 minutes but I'm going to give it like two hours of dry then I'm going to come back and I'm going to do this again working it again and then I'm going to let it dry overnight and I'm going to do it one more time and then I'm going to finish plaster so it's going to take me four times to do this wall right four times because plaster has to dry it has to has to cure a little bit before you can work over it again otherwise if you try to do it all at once the plaster is going to be two more to deeply and it will crack you're going to have to do it all over again so that's why we've got to do it in layers and increments over time I'm coming back now like two hours later it's fairly drives not completely dry but it's dry enough for me to work on so now I'm filling in again those deep gashes I'm going to try to get the base work done though so I keep using my spray bottle that helps you work it a little bit better I'm doing it really firmly notice my strokes are really firmly because again I want to keep it flush with the wall I don't want any buildup on the wall right now it's all about filling in all the deep parts now the next day I'm going to come back I'm just going to scrape any any high parts off just with my trowel and just going to go through and scrape any high parts off and then I'm going to stretch it again and and then I'm going to come in with some more plaster now this time I am now plush with the wall are almost flush with the wall and I'm going to try to blend the patch into the wall so we use our spritz bottle we make sure our class is really well mixed and notice that it's you know it's not runny this is like it's like paste and you know I use very firm strokes now your notice that you're going to get a line and the way to keep the lines or occurring number of things first of all keep your trowel clean usually you get a line because there's too much it's too much plaster on your trowel that pushes out also watch that there's no grit on your trial so keep your trout clean you can also with a clean trowel just spritz it with your we spray bottle like this and that will help you smooth out the plaster takes a little practice to do this but you know it's like smoothing out icing on a cake you keep on doing it now you see here the patch is looking pretty good and now I'm going to let this part dry again for a long time maybe four hours or so and then I'll go over one more time with some Finnish plaster this is the finished plaster I use comes in buckets it's pre-mixed and ready to use this one's called joint compound if it's in a smaller bucket it might be called spackling it's a light plaster it takes a while to dry it's also pretty wet plaster I mean it takes takes a good while for this dry and so it's only used for light applications I use it for finish work because it's pre-mixed it's really smooth it's without any flaws and it gives you a great result in the end after you have finished your final coat let it dry ideally overnight and then come back and just take your trowel and gently scrape over the wall to make sure you get all the nibs and nubs and ridges out there will always be a few of those and then get the finest sandpaper 220 grit very lightly go over the wall maybe one swipe and each edge is very lightly and again you're just getting out any of those little imperfections finally take a damp cloth not a wet cloth a damp cloth and gently rub over the wall rub in one direction you're just getting up the plaster dust in preparation for painting you have to prime your plaster before painting it if you do not prime your plaster your plaster will soak up your topcoat and give you a very bad result also your topcoat might pull up one or two layers of plaster so I use a heavy duty primer something like kills and I just roll over my plaster patches one time that's all it takes just one roll of heavy-duty primer and you're good to go let it dry a couple hours and you can topcoat it before I leave you let me give you a few tips number one if you're working around an electrical outlet you need to tape that up because you're going to be spritzing that area with your spray bottle and you don't want to short out that outlet number two you need to reinforce some of your cutouts if you've cut into the lath you're going to have some loose flat so the first thing to do is take some old lath that extends about two inches beyond you're cut out on either end fit that laughs behind you're cut out of what you're going to do is you're going to drill into the sturdy last into the labs that are not loose above it and below just two screws so you're just pulling in that laughs against the loose laughs so that you now have a very firm support there for those loose lats number three you can also reinforce a cut out by installing a piece of sheetrock behind that cut out similar to the way we installed the loose piece of lat behind the cutout all you're doing again is drilling into the sturdy last on the top and bottom of the cutout above and below the cutout so you're just fitting that sheetrock behind the cutout with two screws and then you can insert another piece of sheetrock over that and then patch it up let's review the whole process one more time when I'm working on a wall I worked fairly quickly I just take a rough piece of sheetrock and I'm just going to cut it roughly to fit we're doing the same process we did before you know you're slicing through the paper on one side bumping the back like so two slicing here bump it to break the seal and you slice the backside so I'm just going to fit it in here as best I can the main thing is I just want to keep the plaster from falling into this huge hole so this sheetrock is going to give me some support here and don't be afraid that you're gonna chew into the plaster all of this work here it's going to be reinforced with our new layers of plaster so you know if you need to chew away at the wall go ahead and then once we have it in place we're going to screw it down don't forget when we're inserting the sheetrock screws we've got to perforate the paper the head of the sheetrock screw has to go below the surface of the paper so that it will be flush once we get to the plaster down and then once this is in place we're going to spritz the work here in so that the work area does not absorb the moisture from the plaster and gives the plaster time to the dry and cure now this first base coats just mainly getting those huge gaps and notice I've got the big old hole there I'm gonna have to take care of a little bit later I'm going to let this dry overnight but you know usually I let it dry 2 to 4 hours and that might be enough time to work on another layer so overnight I'm going to let this one drive and come back a spritz work area again and apply a little bit of thicker coat here what I do when I'm working on a big room is that I'll let the plaster in my bucket get a little stick just as it's like 5 minutes away from getting really stiff I'm going to use it for the big patches for these holes here and it's the plasters really going to stick in there then I'll come back then you know another 4 hours or so and do a third coat this might be the last coat sometimes I need three sometimes I need four I need a fourth coat I'll use the finish Flast err and just go over one more time so we strip the wallpaper from this room started with raw walls patch them then Prime them then painted them that process took about a week there you have it that's plastering an old wall remember when patching or plastering a lath and plaster wall you've got to layer the plastering let the layers dry that will give you the best effect it takes some time but it will be worth the effort thank you for joining us my name is Ron Jill is my partner and we are house left good luck with your project it's a wonderful whoa I'm just walking on air it's a wonderful world I've got more than my share baby I must be lucky through and through it's a wonderful world

Channel: Ron Tanner

Views: 1,063,074

Keywords: patching lathe and plaster walls, plastering walls, how to plaster, how to repair lathe and plaster walls, Lath And Plaster, plaster repair, house love, ron tanner

Id: t4oI2SsOAC4

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 27 2013