Cellar Plaster

[daveyb1234]

I live in a 160 year old Yorkshire Stone house which has a fairly large but also fairly underused cellar.

We've lived in the house about 2 years now and have finally got round to doing something with said cellar. We are lucky in the fact it is very dry most of the time so no damp issues or anything like that however the previous plaster & paint job looks to have been done an very long time ago and has just given up the ghost through age.

My original plan was just to take all the flaking paint off and repaint with an appropriate paint (as I am not looking to tank out the cellar or anything like that, just a lick of paint). However when I have scraped the paint off in certain areas I am taking nice big chunks of light blue plaster too.......

I know a professional would probably strip the entire thing back to bare brick and start again but i have no real desire to do that especially when the plaster seems intact in the most part. So I guess my question is can I just use some patch up plaster to fill in the areas where the plaster have come away and then proceed with the painting? Is there a certain type of plaster to use for this or perhaps something a bit stronger?

I have attached a couple of photos of the sort of thing I am encountering with the plaser coming away.

Cheers, Dave.

 

[ree]

Pics of the whole cellar wall (s) would help.

The "blue plaster" is probably a traditional blue wash.
The skim finish plaster is shelling off and exposing what looks like a "bubbly" coat below. The bubbly effect is due to penetrating damp salts. There might also be issues of condensation in the cellar.

If you remove all the loose skim you could go over the patches with a remedial skim such as Limelite finish.

Only use a masonry paint on the decorative surface.

 

[daveyb1234]

Thanks for replying.

Clearly I'm no plasterer but what you've said makes sense. My initial plan was to scrape the existing paintwork off and as you have suggested replace it with a decent quality masonry paint.

I'm afraid Im not at home currently so cannot upload any more photos at this time, but they wouldn't be a great deal different. Most of the wall is that cream type colour of the orginal paint which I am scraping aware. Underneath there appears to be as you have described a blue wash and some other form of plaster.

The area I have posted photos of willl have taken some water damage at some point as I believe next doors washer leaked into the house a few years ago and completely wrecked a section of the ground floor wall. This has all been replaced however it is right above this part of the cellar so no doubt the paint/plaster will have been effected there the most.

If I remove the loose skim and apply limelite finish I should be okay? Sounds like a plan to me!

Cheers, Dave

 

[ree]

I'm responding to your request for a partial, presumably cheap, fix. Thats all i've suggested.