I have a unit that needs some TLC with regards to the old plaster walls. Im ok with scraping and joint compound in small doses, but truthfully, I want this to come out nice and I just dont trust myself to do the quality of work I desire. At the same time if the price isn’t reasonable ill probably just have to do it myself, I guess ive never looked into anything like this before. Most every wall will need some sort of scraping and retouch so I want someone who feels competent with it.
Its about a 1,300sq/ft N. Buffalo upper which needs all three bedrooms, dining room, and living room done. Catch is, there’s currently tenants in there but they’re friends of mine and they’re pretty flexible in order to make this happen. Ideal scenario would be someone who can come over and bust out one room at a time to keep the place overall still livable.
If you, or anyone you know can do some ok work (oh yeah, and on the cheap) please let me know. Any help would be appreciated.
Sounds like that will be too much $ from the description. Are the walls honestly that bad? For me to allocate $ there it would have to increase rent or turn off a certain caliber of tenant. (North Buffalo landlord myself).
In the past I’ve done spot patch repairs then knock down texture over everything. Irregular surface hides typical imperfections in plaster. On the cheap sounds like $5.00 an hour with a six pack.
What I originally wanted to do, however there’s still a lot of nice original trim and moldings id like to maintain and pulling it all off is out of the question for now. I really wanted to do this but too many people told me to stay clear due to the molding.
Not this tenant, but future tenants yes. Im currently going to town on all of my units aiming for higher end North Buffalo renters. Im already getting insane rents compared to the places POs just from some paint, Pergo and SS appliances. The walls are the most blatant and glaring issue with the unit that was going to need to be fixed and its what my friends really want the most, so if im doing total overhaul this is the starting point.
This is the approach I take with the units I have with plaster. If it needs anything less than a complete gut I do all of my patching with durabond and spray the whole room with an orange peel texture…that way when the next tenant destroys a wall trying to move in an oversized sofa it’s easy to patch and blend that area.
Spraying texture can be messy though.
Smooth plaster is just too hard to maintain in a tenant environment
I understand beggars cant be choosers here if im avoiding drywall, but is the knockdown/orange peel a little dated of a look or does it really pull together? I guess I havent been around enough nicer places that have it.
Pulling the trim is not an option?? That stuff is probably decent hardwood. As long as your careful, you can take it down, drywall and put it back up. Not like it’ll splinter like some cheap shit you can buy today. I just took some out of my living room to get some awful panelling down. You can’t even tell.
I would say orange peel is more stylish than cracked plaster or poorly patched plaster.
He’ll go to any tract home in the south and they are all orange peel walls with knockdown ceilings… It’s a lot cheaper to pay a guy with a sprayer than one that knows how to properly finish drywall
Keeping in mind I dont have much experience with Home Improvement… ive been advised that trim thats been hanging on a wall for over 100 years is way more hassle than I want to get involved with between removing carefully, pulling nails, getting it to line up right again, etc. I mean, there’s a lot of it and keep in mind theres still people living in the unit. Although I agree its the right way, it would seem that it would add an immense amount of time and work to the project.
Very good point. I guess im just curious as to how quick and crappy of joint compound work I can get away with to make the walls still look nice enough. Guess ill have to find some before and after pictures.
Even if you tore out the plaster 1/2" drywall will not install to the same “thickness” so your reinstallation of trim will not be simple. I would do the knock down, and there are ways to vary the finish to different “styles”. I’d be interested but as I mentioned, you sound like you want it done for free / cheap and I can’t do that. Not to mention one member on here left me with a bad taste in my mouth recently.
Haha definitely not free, at the least I wouldn’t feel comfortable offering anyone anything less than what they thought their time is worth, but I also have my top dollar as well. Like I said earlier, I guess I just dont even know what a “friendly rate” for something like this even is.
At the end of the day im flexible, if someone wanted to check out the entire place and tell me what they thought they could do per hour, per room, for the whole place, etc. Whatever it is, I wouldn’t want someone angry working on my place thinking they’re not being paid enough.
I typically make the patch as smooth as possible with the knife and feather it out reasonably well…but I don’t go to the trouble of sanding unless there is a very obvious ridge. Plaster isn’t typically flat to begin with but it is smooth…so as long as you don’t leave edges and ridges the texture covers a lot of sins…even more so with knockdown which is a thicker texture than an orange peel.
I’ll look through my pictures to see if I have a close up of any textured areas.
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Agreed. I’ve salvaged a lot of old trim and it never quite goes back in the way it came out…and disturbing decades worth of paint and repaint always results in a bunch of sanding to smooth it all out again.
My mother in law just bought a house, and it needs extensive plaster repair, removing and dry walling is not an option as she wants to keep the original plaster look. Any contractor recommendations? This will be for 3 rooms needing major repair, and minor repair in the rest of the house.
I am working with a guy right now that does amazing work. He’ll be tied up at the job I’m on for awhile but I can get you his contact info if your not in a huge hurry. He doesn’t work for any particular company but this guy has worked some plaster miracle work on the 100+ year old mansion I’m working in.
We have lined up 4 contractors to come in and do estimates, whittled down from a list of 10. The 4 picked based on them concentrating, or even understanding old home restoration. One, MJM, Took the time to explain many things to my mother in law, she was on the phone with him for an hour, even gave a rough estimate over the phone that was reasonable and a little cheaper than expected.