How soon can I paint & paper over new plaster?

lonestarfan

I'm having some new electric sockets put in where they will be chased in to the wall and the damage made good and plastered over. Lots of small plastering jobs really as 4 sets of double sockets will be put in. I was hoping to paint and wallpaper pretty quickly once they are in. How long should I wait for the plaster to dry before I can paint and wallpaper over it? Thanks.

27col

On tv the DIY SOS crowd seem to paint one end of the wall while the plasterer is working on the end, sometimes.

bridgedino

Just had my entire house re-skimmed, walls and ceiling. As soon as the plaster had dried out I was painting ceilings and papering. No issues after 18mths

marlot

I would emulsion over it as soon as you like (allow maybe 3 hours).

But I'd not paper over the new plaster until it's completely dried out.

cyclonebri1

The best method is to simply leave it until it is a uniform light pink, may only be few hours if just patched, a whole wall skimmed or new PB and skim would take around 2 days given decent ventilation.

You are likely to need several coats on fresh plaster to make the paint opaque if painting in a similar colour. Paint the new bits 1 day and then coat the lot the next.

trailingspouse

Once it's dry, you're good to go. I've just painted our new bathroom - was ready to do 2 days after it was skimmed. I did a miss coat using emulsion watered down 25:75, then 2 coats of full-strength paint.

If you're wallpapering, you'll need to size the walls before you begin (this just involves 'painting' the wall with watered-down wallpaper paste and then letting it dry).

DevCoder

Yes, make sure you do a mist coat if its a large area/wall of plaster before painting. Wait until the plaster is a uniform light pink colour.