SKIM COATING PLASTER WALLS HOW TO
SKIM COATING PLASTER WALLS PRO

You’ll also find taping knives in every size, sanding tools (sanding screens last longer and are a little quicker for a project like this rather than the traditional paper), and a mud pan (a plastic or metal trough-like container that makes using a large taping knife easier when trying to scoop up mud). Here you’ll find contractor-sized buckets of lightweight joint compound – simple, plainly labeled, and surprisingly cheaper.

SKIM COATING PLASTER WALLS PRO

But if you want to save your money, clear up the confusion, and feel more like a pro (who doesn’t?), walk a few aisles over to where they sell the drywall.

If you go to the paint aisle (where most people search for wallpaper remover, spackling, and other related materials), you’ll find that there is usually only one brand of joint compound, comes in small containers, and can leave you overwhelmed with all of the other vinyl spackling, interior/exterior compound, “smooth”, “flexible”, “high-performance”, “lightweight”, “fast and final”, BLAH BLAH BLAH types around it. Tool shopping tips: All-purpose joint compound is cheap, but I wanted to share a little tip to make things easy for you when shopping at the big box stores. taping knives of various sizes… I used a 6-inch and 10-inch because it’s easy to manage.sanding screens of various grits (you start with coarse and work your way to fine).hand sander or sanding kit (if you do more than one room like I did, get the sanding kit!).lite joint compound (updated since first posting).mud pan (be sure you can fit whichever sized taping knives you use).UPDATE: For those of you who like a list, here’s a list (with links to Amazon, which I’d make a few cents off of if you purchased direct for the referral, but it really doesn’t earn me much more than a few cups of coffee!): To do it right, you’ll want joint compound, a mud pan, a wet rag, and a much wider knife called a joint knife or taping knife – I chose the 10- incher simply because I’m small, in a small space, and wielding anything larger felt like using a snow shovel – but there are wider versions available at your local Blue or Orange. To do it wrong, you’ll need only a bucket of joint compound (“JC” or “mud” as you’ll see in this post) and a 4″ metal putty knife. The right tools are the difference between getting half of a wall done in two nights versus three in one night. Which brings me to my next tip: The right tools for this job are key. Skim Coat ToolsĬreate your smooth finish, and everything after it is easier. And paint won’t be forgiving of your mistakes. You can’t expect the sanding step to take care of all of the loose ends (trust me, the sanding part of four walls is a real pain, and you want to give yourself as smooth of a start as possible to prevent hours of correcting later). You can’t just slap it on and expect a smooth finish in the end. So remember: it’s not impossible, but you will have to put in the time to see satisfactory results. While I have turned my skim coat into a post-workday evening project, it took several of those evenings to learn to get it right, to get a rhythm going, and to start seeing finished results. As much as I would like there to be, there is no easy button for this.

Next lesson I’ve learned: To do it right, you will have to put in the time and effort. Now that I’ve gotten up close and personal with my bathroom drywall, I’m learning that the above is definitely true in my case. So, the first lesson here is this: You need to skim coat drywall if you want a smooth finish. Many brands have a subtle texture like cross hatching, which can create a noticeable difference when you paint over the perfectly smooth seams vs. But the paper covering the entire sheet of drywall is typically not smooth. When first putting up drywall, you screw it in place, tape the seams, and cover them with joint compound.

SKIM COATING PLASTER WALLS HOW TO

How to repair damaged drywall after wallpaper removalįirst of all, we should start by clearing up a myth: most drywall by itself is not smooth.

Skim coating plaster walls