Weekend Vibes only.. Sundays are Fundays

Weekends are normally sacred to us. Time to relax go for long scenic walks on mountains or beaches.

Those days have long gone, plastering has taken over, practice practice practice.

So this is now how I spend my weekends.

Rob is loving the Diy and discovering how to upcycle, recycle and use what we have got and then you do not need what you have not. Which is absolutely right, but this is impacting our down time.

This is all in aid of the coming work that we will have to do on the house, which will be all of the plastering flooring and decorating. Plastering being one of the biggest things we will have to do so we do have to practice. Its been a few weeks now since doing our course with www.Csplasteringschool.co.uk we don`t want to lose that skill nor forget the routine.

Rob has cleverly built us a practice plaster wall and ceiling, and is delighted with it.

Practice Wall

I must admit it is very good. He is pretty great at the DIY thing. However all I see is no chill time.

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He is right we need to practice. With us both working the only time we have for this is evenings and weekends. So I have to stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with it.

In the picture on the left, this is our practice wall made from plasterboard, all measured as we were taught at www,csplasteringschool.co.uk along with the obligatory hole that needs repairing. The hole was not put there as a practice piece but simply we dropped the plasterboard which created the hole. may aswell use this to our advantage and incorporate a repair into our practice.

Here we are, all set to go with our bucket trowels, hawks, skimming trowels and corner trowels.https://amzn.to/43g78fl

Mixing the plaster is also a skill. its knowing what the consistency should be not too thick yet not too wet to enable you to control the plaster and transfer this from the table to the hawk to the trowel. You also have a time limit with the plaster so you have to be relatively quick working with it.

First coats were going on. Starting with the ceiling. ( I did sing dancing on the ceiling!)

I have great difficulty with the ceiling, with neck and shoulder issues. You are constantly looking up and the use of your arms to gain enough of the pressure to achieve an even skim for me is painful and we need to have an accomplished finish.

I don't for one minute think its easy for Rob but it is about knowing your limitations physically and with the skill and Rob has graciously volunteered to be the ceiling plasterer.

Its also remembering the routine and prep. We both in this practice run forgot certain elements so in simple terms. The first coat doesn`t have to be the neatest, just get it on the walls with full coverage of approximately 2 mm thick.

Clean your tools and then trowel off the first coat to make it smooth and even. If you are really good, and your first skim has good coverage and even you may be able to not do a second coat. We are challenging ourselves to get to this point. We haven`t achieved this yet but there`s time and we live in hope.

We left our first Skim over night and came back to this the following day. So to make the plaster stick to the first skim you need a coat of PVA glue. Wait for it to go tacky and then your second skim can be added.

The second skim should be an even 1mm thick .

This is the layer that needs to look good.

Finished second coat

This needs to be smooth, even, with no cracks or dents. Another habit of both of ours is with the trowel or the hawk, while making the plaster smooth then turning and gouging a lump of the plaster with the tools. We have to make a conscious effort to keep these tools out of the way of the wall whilst working

The lighter part of the wall is my finished plastered wall.

As you can see there are dark patches which are taking time to dry.

This is because I have put the plaster on too thick in those areas and they are definitely alot more than1 mm thick.

That is the starting point for placing the plaster and you move up the wall using pressure to spread the plaster.

On the course I was told that this is normal for new plasterers to do this as it is difficult to place the plaster on the wall at the lower levels with the pressure needed to achieve the required thickness. I find it awkward but hopefully practice will make things better. The more we do this the more our arms will strengthen to enable us to do better.

Once your second skim is on you then trowel it off to make it even and smooth, leave for approximately 1.5 hours and polish with your trowel. ( useful tool the trowel, use this for everything plaster) The wall feels so different after polishing, so smooth and shiny. It is a sense of achievement.

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Although our weekends now consist of practicing our plastering skills. We are in this together and still spending quality time with each other, infact, although its hard graft you can have alot of fun. The Weekend Vibes are still around.

Alone we can do so little, Together we can do so much. Helen Keller