Painting Tips

Now is the BEST time to paint the inside of your home or office!!

Get the most for your money & let the Bad economy and COLD winter season work for you.

Due to the state of the economy & the fact that it is still
winter, a lot of contractors are working at a lower rate just to keep
themselves & their crew busy.

Call painting Plus today & ask about 100% odor free – VOC free paint. Great for painting indoors during the winter months.

There is NO odor when working with these paints in an enclosed area.

James S. McCormick,
Painting + Restoration, Ltd.

Livingston, NY. 12541

845-605-4188

Free Interior Painting Estimate

Drywall – Taping – Plaster – Repairs

Cracks in plaster ceiling & walls

How to resurface plaster

In this post I will talk about how to resurface plaster. Take a look at the photo to the left showing all of the cracks in the plaster.

The first thing we did was remove any loose pieces of plaster and vacuum to get as much of the plaster dust as possible.

Then we primed all areas of the plaster wit a water based – fast drying – sealer primer.

We did this to seal up the walls and ceiling since the knee-wall was made of drywall and not plaster.  The paper was torn on the sheetrock so sealing it with the primer keeps the paper from bubbling up under the new plaster.

Some areas also had some wallpaper that we were not able to remove so the primer keeps this from bubbling or peeling under the new plaster.

Fiberglass mesh

Fiberglass mesh over cracks in plaster

After the entire area was primed/sealed we covered all of the walls and the ceiling with a fiberglass mesh to keep the cracks from coming back.

This mesh gets embedded in the new plaster and helps to prevent the cracks from coming back after the repair is complete.

First coat of durabond over cracks:

First coat of plaster over the cracks

The first coat was just a coat of durabond to cover the cracks and fill in any gaps or holes.

Durabond is kind of a plaster mix but dries much harder & quicker than plaster.

We always like to use it as a base coat to fill the cracks because of it’s strength and bonding qualities.

You have to work very neatly with it because it dries fast and hard. You can’t sand it much once it has hardened so you want to keep it clean.

Second coat of plaster:

First coat of plaster

This photo shows the second coat. which is really the base coat of plaster.

Once this coat dries we lightly scrape the lat marks (lines left by taping knife.) out of the plaster and clean up the corners with a 2″ taping knife to get the plaster ready for the next coat.

Final coat of plaster

Final coat of plaster

This is the wall after the final coat of plaster.

We will still clean it up a bit before priming such as the areas where the plaster meets the wood trim and in corners & coves.

Coves are the areas where the ceiling meets the wall. or the horizontal corners.

The bump out in the wall on the right is a brick chimney that we covered with plaster.

So now we are ready to prime all of the new plaster to seal it up and prepare it for finish paint.

To help recreate the old world look we wanted the new plaster to have brush marks instead of roller marks like traditional methods of painting leave.

Rollers leave kind of an orange peel effect so what we did was prime the plaster using a roller and covering about 5′ = 5′ sections at a time.

Then I would set down the roller and grab my 4′ paint brush and went over the area that I had just rolled.

Then I would prime the next section with the roller and brush it out. Leaving brush marks with even consistent strokes.

We repeated this technique with each of the two finish coats as well.

Each time I would brush in a different direction which left a cool cross hatch pattern in the paint.

Brush Marks:

Brush marks in wet paint.

Visit our website to see more Plaster repair projects.

How to repair plaster walls.

After removing some drywall we uncovered this original plaster wall. The homeowner wanted to preserve the Historic Qualities of this 1750’s Farmhouse. You can see that a lot of the plaster has crumbled to the floor and left the wood lath exposed. At least half of the original plaster was still intact.

After chipping out all loose plaster I used a shop vac and thoroughly cleaned the wood lath & plaster removing as much dust as possible. Then I mixed up a pail of Durabond 90 and applied a base coat over the wood lath trying to build up the plaster on the lath to match the existing plaster.

I let this coat dry for a few hours and then scraped the lat marks out and applied a second coat of Durabond 90. This coat made the wall very even and just needed some smoothing out.

After letting the wall dry over night I mixed up a pail of easy sand 45. I applied an even coat of easy sand to the plaster wall. I took my time leaving the plaster as even and smooth as I could so that hardly any sanding was necessary.

The end result was a beautifully restored plaster wall.

Plaster Restoration

We have been restoring & repairing plaster walls since 1996. We can also patch and repair drywall.

Click here for a free estimate for your Plaster Repair project

Hello,

Welcome to Painting Tips by Painting + Restoration, Ltd. My name is James & I am the President of Painting + Restoration, Ltd.

I founded Painting Plus in 1996 after being laid off one winter in the drywall business. I began doing  jobs for friends & relatives who knew of my skills and that I had some free time. Each year since than my company has continued to grow. I have since incorporated and the name of the company has changed from Painting Plus to Painting + Restoration, Ltd.

We are very well versed in all phases of painting – Taping – Sheetrock – Plaster including Plaster Repair and Plaster Resurfacing.

Historical Restoration is another service we offer including Victorian – Sears “arts n crafts” catalog homes – Dutch Farm Houses, Wood & Stone and more.

I will randomly be adding some do it your self tips here in this blog so be sure to check back!

And PLEASE feel free to post any questions you might have about your home improvement project & I will post a reply promply.

Have a great day,

James