"I have a painting problem: All the walls and ceilings in my apartment have been painted using a sponge technique. The paint itself is a latex flat base to which powdered pigments were added along with a small amount of an abrasive material to give the walls an "adobe" look.I now wish to repaint...
When a lath-and-plaster wall has loose plaster, you shouldn't just put more plaster over it, because the base is no longer solid it will quickly crack again. Either remove the loose plaster, or secure it down.One way is with special "plaster washers". These are light curved washers made out of ...
The books say 32 inches, but there is no reason for that to be a hard and fast rule. However if you make it a lot smaller you will have the impression of being a giant Alice in a tiny Wonderland. If you make it a lot higher, it will dominate the wall.Wainscoting was originally created to protec...
Joe in Edmonton and Pat in Vancouver both asked if they could change their stippled ceilings to smooth ceilings.This is a real tough job and my standard response is to scrape off the high points and simply put drywall over the stipple rather than trying to do a full wall plaster job. But it can ...
Ever wandered into the renovation centre looking for something to patch a hole in the wall? Complicated, isn't it with so many choices. Why so many? Some are made to fill large holes or cracks without shrinking, others are made to give you a fine smooth finish and some try to do a bit of both....
Robert in High River, Alberta sent us a great idea for those ceiling butt joints that are so hard to hide.Rather than having the butt ends of his drywall meet on a ceiling joist as is standard, Robert has them meet floating in the air right in-between two ceiling joists. Then he puts a plywood s...
Mike asked for help in repairing a large hole in drywall, so we built a model with several alternatives. All of them work. Follow this link to the Learning Curve Tab for a video on all of this.The traditional technique is to slide wood, or even drywall strips into the wall and screw them into p...
When you have water damage, or a wild swing from a hockey stick that forces you to repair the stipple on your ceiling, the repair is a combination of art work and home improvement technique. You probably won't match the colour, even if it is just because the old one is dirty and the new clean, s...
Ted has plaster falling off of his concrete condo kitchen ceilings. Apparently it is related to moisture, so it would be a good idea to see if there is a leak from above, or a lot of excess moisture in the kitchen itself. Exhaust fans may solve the problem.Sometimes you just can't solve the pro...
When something like passing trains or heavy traffic keep cracking plaster, or wallpaper corners in a house, you will not succeed in stopping the movement, but you can hide it.Cut the wallpaper neatly in the stressed corner.Nail molding into the corner, but attached only to one side. The other si...
