Finishes · Plastering
Plastering and rendering, flat and true.
Skim, float and set, dot and dab, and external render. Done by plasterers who leave a wall you can put a light against, and who know when a period wall needs lime rather than gypsum.
Flat walls,
the right material.
A fresh skim over sound existing plaster or new board, taken to a finish that takes paint without patching.
Hacking off blown or damaged plaster back to brick, then float and set. The honest answer when a skim will not hold.
Dot and dab plasterboard, metal stud partitions, and boarding out ready for skim.
Sand and cement, monocouche and silicone render, on new build and on refurbishment.
Period and listed properties need a breathable lime system. Putting gypsum on a solid wall traps moisture and causes the damp it was meant to hide.
Repair and replacement of decorative plasterwork in period rooms, run in situ or matched from a section.
From survey
to finished wall.
We check what is behind the surface. Whether plaster is blown, whether the wall is solid or cavity, and whether it needs a breathable system.
Priced by area and by system, with any hack-off and disposal shown separately so nothing appears later.
Protection down, surfaces prepared, beads and stops fixed, and background suction controlled so the finish does not craze.
Trowelled up and left flat. We tell you how long it needs before paint, because painting green plaster ruins both.
Answered
plainly.
If the existing plaster is sound and well keyed, yes. If it is blown, which you can hear as a hollow note when you tap it, a skim will come away with it. We check before quoting and tell you which one you are dealing with.
Usually two to four weeks depending on thickness, ventilation and time of year. It needs to go from dark brown to a uniform pale pink throughout. The first coat should be a thinned mist coat, and we will tell you the mix.
On a solid brick wall, often yes. A breathable lime plaster lets moisture move through and out. Sealing a solid wall with gypsum and modern paint traps it, and the damp reappears somewhere else. We will say which your wall needs rather than default to whatever is quickest.
Yes, sand and cement, monocouche and silicone systems, on new work and over existing render once we have checked what is underneath.
Yes. Small sections can be repaired in situ, longer runs are matched from a section and run to match the existing profile.
All 32 London boroughs, with a focus on west and south-west London.
Tell us the property
and we will survey it.
A site visit, an honest recommendation and a fixed written quote. London-wide.
How plastering work is decided and priced.
Almost every plastering job comes down to one question asked early: are the existing walls sound enough to skim, or does the old plaster have to come off. Plasterers answer it with a knuckle. A wall that rings solid takes a skim. A wall that sounds hollow has lost its key, and anything laid over it comes away with it within a year or two. Tapping a room takes five minutes and it is the difference between a two day job and a five day one.
Skimming sound walls
A two coat skim of finish plaster over existing plaster or new board. The walls are prepared, the suction controlled with PVA or a bonding agent, beads and stops fixed at corners and openings, and the surface trowelled flat. This is the cheapest plastering there is and it is only cheap because the background is already doing the work.
Hacking off and re-plastering
Where plaster is blown, salt damaged or covering a wall that has been damp, it is taken back to the brick, the walls are dubbed out and floated, then set. Our plasterers price the hack off and the disposal separately from the plastering itself, because that is where the labour and the skip cost sits and it is the part most often hidden inside a round number on someone else's quote.
Ceilings
An old lath and plaster ceiling that has started to drop cannot be rescued with a skim. The usual answer is to overboard the ceiling or take it down and reboard, then skim. Overboarding is quicker and keeps the dust down, but it adds depth at the cornice, so on a period room with decorative plasterwork taking the ceiling down is often the better answer even though it costs more.
Solid walls and lime
On a solid brick Victorian wall the plaster has a job beyond looking flat, which is letting the wall dry inwards. Gypsum and modern paint on those walls seals them, and the moisture reappears at skirting level or in the room next door. Lime plastering costs more and takes longer to cure, and on the right walls it is the only thing that works.
Areas we cover.
We take plastering and rendering work across all 32 London boroughs. Most of our work is in west London, in Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington, Chiswick and White City, and in south west London, in Putney, Wandsworth and Wimbledon. We also work in south east London, in Greenwich, Blackheath and Lewisham.
If your property is outside these areas, call us anyway. We travel across London and will tell you honestly if a job is too far to price properly.