pasterboarded walls do not reach the ceiling

[Jonny7]

This is the scenario. Bought a bungalow, every ceiling in artexed. As is the coving and the wall down to the picture rail. Not to my taste so the whole lot has had to go, coving, artex, picture rail... the lot. OK, standard stuff so far.

In the Kitchen, for some reason, someone has plasterboarded onto the existing wall and then put coving around it to hide the gap. Only thing is, this gap can be anything from a few mill to about 70 - 80mm. Clearly they decided that there was no point taking the plasterboard right up to the ceiling. Which is OK if you are going to scrape the ceiling and put plain coving back up. The artex must have been done recently to sell as it's not painted and comes off a treat after being wetted with a sponged water/suger soap solution - to reveal a very nice plain ceiling with just the odd crack in the joins.

I'm not really a great fan of coving so would prefer to fill in this gap giving a nice 'straight' finish up to the ceiling.

So I'm seeking advice on what is the best way of filling this gap and finishing off nice and flat. I could put up plain coving which in many respects would be the simplest solution but would prefer to explore other avenues first.

I'm thinking about 'no more nailing' cut to size strips of say thin MDF to the old wall (Thinner than the plaster board and cut to fill in most of the gap) and then finishing off with a plaster mix using a float to level the plaster off to the plaster board walls. Or can I just fill the whole gap with plaster?

Is that feasible, is there a better way or should I (as my gut feeling is telling me) just go with the new coving and put up with it?

 

[jbonding]

you can fill with carlite bonding and skim making sure to put fibre tape along the joints before you skim to reduce cracking also you can stick strips of plasterboard with bonding compound,tape and skim, i wouldnt use mdf its harder to cut,more expensive and it doesnt like water.

 

[Jonny7]

Thanks for that. I think I'd rather go for the straight fill with Carlite to be honest. Can it be put on up to say 10mm thick or do you need to build it up like filler?

 

[TexMex]

10mm thick bonding, no problem.

 

[Jonny7]

Thanks for that reply too.

So if it will fill 10mm deep in one go, would I be better off mixing up some carlite for filling in deep holes such as the craters you get when you pull out 40 year old nails that were used to hold the picture rail onto the wall?

At the moment I'm using Wickes filler powder and having to build up if they are deep and wide (10-15mm deep by about 50-60mm dia). Takes a while to get to a decent finish (sometimes 3 goes).