Plastering, Doors and Skirting

Fingersoffish

Hi All!

I have awful walls/celings upstairs in my property (plaster is >60 years old and was abused by the previous owner with wallpaper and very dark coloured paints). When we moved in we had to make the whole house liveable in under a week on a shoestring budget so we simply stripped the wallpaper and threw a few coats of magnolia on.

The result is awful grubby-looking patchy walls that feel rough to the touch and have gouges, cracks, pitts, and areas where it seems like the 'skim' is missing and just the rough plaster below is showing (particularly noticeable on some of the internal and corners)

The ceiling is ok as it was never papered but has quite a few hairline cracks. 
Additionally, the doors, frames, architrave, and skirting boards are caked in years worth of gloss which doesn't look nice at all.

I know it sounds silly but it really affects my mental health!

We had the downstairs skimmed but this was very costly and hasn't stood the test of time (hairline cracks everywhere because I don't think the plaster below had enough integrity).
The last time we attempted lining paper the wife and I nearly divorced as we just don't have the knack for it!

We don't have a great deal of money and I was wondering if there's anything advice or anything we can do to get the walls ceilings, frames/skirting looking a lot cleaner, nicer without the expense of a plasterer to skim or replaster which I imagine would be at least £3000 for walls + ceilings.

FreeBear

Take the doors & architrave off and have them dipped & stripped - Spent a whole day stripping just one door here, and decided my time was worth more. Had someone come and collect 9 doors to dip'n'strip, just as the pandemic hit. Despite the delays, it was still worth it.

For your walls, fill the cracks & holes with Easifill (go for Easifill 60 as it sets a bit slower), and sand back. If the finish is still not acceptable, a heavy gauge lining paper will hide most things. Getting someone in to hang the paper would probably be cheaper than a divorce.

Soot2006

Years ago I was in a similar situation with very little budget. We opted for cheap white wallpaper and then painted over it ourselves and it looked so much better. The dream was a full replaster but that's sometimes not an option.  For grotty skirtings, etc, a proper deep clean with sugar soap, then either sand and prime and repaint, again will make a huge different and totally DIY

Fingersoffish

FreeBear said:

Take the doors & architrave off and have them dipped & stripped - Spent a whole day stripping just one door here, and decided my time was worth more. Had someone come and collect 9 doors to dip'n'strip, just as the pandemic hit. Despite the delays, it was still worth it.

For your walls, fill the cracks & holes with Easifill (go for Easifill 60 as it sets a bit slower), and sand back. If the finish is still not acceptable, a heavy gauge lining paper will hide most things. Getting someone in to hang the paper would probably be cheaper than a divorce.

Thanks for the advice on dipping and stripping - Seems like that would be a good option, they are good solid doors from the 50s if a little ugly still better than the modern paper-thin ones of today!  I did try getting the power sander on one but after realizing about 5% of the door had taken about an hour I threw in the towel!

I had heard Easifill is good - Is it easy to work with for a total novice?

Ebe_Scrooge

It depends to a large extent on how good you want it to look, and how much time you have.  Woodwork can be stripped then painted/varnished/stained to suit your tastes.  Nitromors or similar is a chemical stripper than can work well, otherwise use a heat gun.  If the doors are solid and of good quality, find out how much it would cost to get someone to "dip" them - this is a particularly good option if they have ornate mouldings or similar.  For the skirting boards, price up the cost of new boards - not strictly the best MSE way, but if you only want very plain skirting it can work out not too expensive, and can save a lot of hassle.  If you want to go down the stripping route, then it's easier to remove the skirting, strip it outside or in a garage/shed if possible, then re-fit once it's re-painted.

For the plaster, it's possible to get a reasonable finish by filling any holes/cracks with Polyfilla or any own-brand alternative, then sanding it flat with fine sandpaper.  It won't be as good as a proper re-skim, but it's a reasonable budget option.

All of these things take a fair amount of time, and create a LOT of mess/dust.  But if you're on a tight budget, it's worth considering.

FreeBear

Fingersoffish said: Thanks for the advice on dipping and stripping - Seems like that would be a good option, they are good solid doors from the 50s if a little ugly still better than the modern paper-thin ones of today!  I did try getting the power sander on one but after realizing about 5% of the door had taken about an hour I threw in the towel!

From memory, it cost me about £20 per door plus another £20 for them to collect & deliver. Well worth the cost in my opinion and beats spending all day with stripper/heat gun/sander.

NSG666

Fingersoffish said:

FreeBear said:

Take the doors & architrave off and have them dipped & stripped - Spent a whole day stripping just one door here, and decided my time was worth more. Had someone come and collect 9 doors to dip'n'strip, just as the pandemic hit. Despite the delays, it was still worth it.

For your walls, fill the cracks & holes with Easifill (go for Easifill 60 as it sets a bit slower), and sand back. If the finish is still not acceptable, a heavy gauge lining paper will hide most things. Getting someone in to hang the paper would probably be cheaper than a divorce.

Thanks for the advice on dipping and stripping - Seems like that would be a good option, they are good solid doors from the 50s if a little ugly still better than the modern paper-thin ones of today!  I did try getting the power sander on one but after realizing about 5% of the door had taken about an hour I threw in the towel!

I had heard Easifill is good - Is it easy to work with for a total novice?

If the surface being filled is porous then it can suck the moisture out very quickly - priming the areas with a dilute PVA mix may help seal and slow it down. It sands easily so if you get too much on it will rub down ok but create plenty of dust.

As an alternative how about patching the walls something near then using this and painting it?

Superfresco Paintable Plaster Wallpaper 5011655190591 | eBay

FaceHead

Fingersoffish said:

FreeBear said:

Take the doors & architrave off and have them dipped & stripped - Spent a whole day stripping just one door here, and decided my time was worth more. Had someone come and collect 9 doors to dip'n'strip, just as the pandemic hit. Despite the delays, it was still worth it.

For your walls, fill the cracks & holes with Easifill (go for Easifill 60 as it sets a bit slower), and sand back. If the finish is still not acceptable, a heavy gauge lining paper will hide most things. Getting someone in to hang the paper would probably be cheaper than a divorce.

I had heard Easifill is good - Is it easy to work with for a total novice?

Yes. I was a novice not long ago, and have found easifil great to work with from day one.

Once you fill the hairline cracks, they will continue to recur if you use a filler that dries hard (like easifil) and has no flexibility, as movement underneath will continue. Easifil is excellent for larger dinks. 

Controversially, I've had a lot of success caulking hairline cracks and repainting. I think a bit more flexibility in the caulk prevents a hairline crack recurring compared to something like easifil. 

ChilliBob

I feel your pain regarding doors and surrounds, our old house was like this. My thoughts:

Removing architraves is likely to damage the wall by the sounds of it, so, I think you're best to deal with on situ, or you might uncover a world of pain or expense.

Stripping them, assuming they are the usual ones with all kinds of notches and sfuff.. 

1. American scraper - this was awesome if you have gloss with chips, often it just comes off like wall paper!

2. Sand paper, obviously

3. Liquid sandpaper, which is similar to nitromors, a chemical stripper. Do wear gloves, goggles and a mask if doing this imo. 

If this works, great, back to bare wood, prime, then paint, or, if like me you spent so bloody long you started to love the wood, then something on it - I used osmo oil

If it's *really* crap and you can't get it off fully, then you can use Zinzzer 123 primer then paint, basically this primer sticks to anything. This is the sort of option if you sand out awful run marks etc and you can't do anything else.

Doors, I did mine in the garden on the garden table, yep, it's shed loads of work with a sander and sand paper, that, or, as above. 

As regards filler, someone suggested Tourpret to me a while ago, which I find very good. Also seems to require less sanding than polyfiller  

ashe

FaceHead said:

Fingersoffish said:

FreeBear said:

Take the doors & architrave off and have them dipped & stripped - Spent a whole day stripping just one door here, and decided my time was worth more. Had someone come and collect 9 doors to dip'n'strip, just as the pandemic hit. Despite the delays, it was still worth it.

For your walls, fill the cracks & holes with Easifill (go for Easifill 60 as it sets a bit slower), and sand back. If the finish is still not acceptable, a heavy gauge lining paper will hide most things. Getting someone in to hang the paper would probably be cheaper than a divorce.

I had heard Easifill is good - Is it easy to work with for a total novice?

Yes. I was a novice not long ago, and have found easifil great to work with from day one.

Once you fill the hairline cracks, they will continue to recur if you use a filler that dries hard (like easifil) and has no flexibility, as movement underneath will continue. Easifil is excellent for larger dinks. 

Controversially, I've had a lot of success caulking hairline cracks and repainting. I think a bit more flexibility in the caulk prevents a hairline crack recurring compared to something like easifil. 

Interesting, I've had a similar experience with Easifill; it looks great once its done but a few months later tiny movement means they're back. Any specific caulk you use, and do you need to prime over it with something special before using the standard paint?

m0t

Dipping doors is fairly cheap, we paid £20 a door in London about 8 years ago. A word of advice though, you have to oil/paint them very quickly afterwards as the dipping process causes them to lose moisture and warp. We waited a few weeks and it was too late by then.

Don't remove the architraves or skirting as you'll damage the walls and definitely need a skim then.

I've found the ronseal lightweight filler to be really good to use on my walls. It's really easy to sand as well.