Finishing the hole left by a chimney

[fooboo]

I have a wall and ceiling to finish in my bedroom. I'm fixing up after a chimney removal.
I can put a piece of plasterboard in the hole in the ceiling but the wall is a bit more complicated.
From the sample quotes I've seen online I can't afford a professional so I have been thinking of dot and daubing it myself.
The issue I have is where the chimney was there is now an uneven surfaced alcove.
There's a patch of wall either side that should be fairly straight forward to plasterboard but I'm unsure of the best thing to do with the recessed portion.
Having lost a layer of brick (the chimney breast) I may need to think about noise reduction. I've found some acoustic plasterboard so I was going to put one of those in the recess and regualr boards either side.

Has anyone any advice on how I should level up the old chimey back area?
Should I hardwall it then dot an daub onto that?
I will be hanging a radiator on that area of wall eventually so whatever I do needs to be able to support one.

Also once the boards are (hopefully) in place, I reckon I would make a pretty crap plasterer and my house is small and in a state at the moment as I'm fixing it up so I was wondering if anyone has tried skimming with ready mix skim? Or is there a decorating solution better suited?

Thanks in advance.

 

[dpsservices]

Any chance of posting a picture, as they say a picture says a thousand wirds regards david

 

[fooboo]

I could only get the top half as I still have furniture in front of it at the mo. Juggling junk as I clear out my loft

 

[fooboo]

Hmm did that work? The picture showed up then disappeared.

 

[lostinthelight]

Is there enough of a recess to batton it out to within plasterboard and skim thickness of the surrounding walls?
If you plan on the size of rad you need you could make sure some battons were fixed to accommodate the brackets.
litl

 

[fooboo]

That would work but I was hoping to keep some recess so the radiator doesn't stick out too far. The door opens directly onto this area. When the chimney was there you'd enter the room and walk directly into the side of the chimney. So for getting furniture in and what have you it'd be convinient not to have it jutting too far into that space.

 

[lostinthelight]

Whatever you do you will need to treat or isolate the soot from staining the finished surface .
litl

 

[fooboo]

I was planning on scrubbing it down and applying a pva water mix. The chimney was taken down some years ago and brushed off quite a bit back then so there isn't a lot of loose soot just some staining on the bricks.

 

[fooboo]

But if I use hardwall I've heard I don't want to ue the pva as the mix will want the suction of the raw brick.

 

[Alastairreid]

Sand and cement render with waterproofer for a scratchcoat to prevent any leeching.
Bonding plaster built up in 10mm coats then level off and skim.

 

[fooboo]

Ah ok. Thanks.
I'm a novice so do you know if that will have the same acoustic damping properties as acoustic plasterboard? I'm guessing the density should be there with the cement?

 

[Alastairreid]

The render will prevent any leeching coming through! it wont have the same sound blocking properties as acoustic or sound bloc plasterboard.

 

[fooboo]

Ah ok. Thanks for the info.