Hi first post and what a helpful forum this is 
I am decorating my bedroom, my house is about 50 years old, the bedroom has 3 solid plaster walls and 1 skimmed stud wall (between rooms). I have scrapped off the old painted wood chip and backing paper so i am down to the bare walls. I want flat walls to paint so i am prepared to do the filling and sanding to get decent results. However i have only has plasterboard walls in previous houses so i seek a little advice on the correct way to repair the cracks. I don't want to put lining paper up so i want to prepare the walls good enough to paint.
After searching the forum i have read dry wall joint compound is a good product for repairing cracks and filling in, i have used this before when doing a bit of plasterboard joint filling.
1) What i noticed is the wall which the chimney breast is behind seems to have many hairline cracks, so fine you can only see the lines looking closely and you cant even feel them with your finger. Should i do anything to fill these in as i reckon a few coats of good paint should cover them up ok as they don't even have a gap as they are so fine. IS painting suffice or should i be treating these cracks first.
2) I found quite a few cracks which had opened up slightly so i scrapped out a groove along the crack about 3mm deep and intend to fill these in with the dry wall joint compound. Is this suffice or should i be using anything else to treat the cracks ?
3) Any large wide cracks in the plaster i chipped away as some of the plaster seemed a bit soft so i scrapped out a deep channel about 1cm to remove the plaster that was not sound and soft base coat. Again i intend to fill these with dry wall joint compound and wondering if i should do or use anything else to treat the larger cracks.
4)The ceiling in the room has cracks at the joints. It has been done with some plasterboard kind of stuff, don't know what they used 50 years ago, its not plasterboard but similar. ANyway every room in the house has these cracks, i don't want to just fill them in and they appear again so is the best i can do just screw the ceiling boards to the joists securely with dry wall screws and scrape out the joints, joint tape them and skim with joint compound? Will this be a good repair and be enough to stop the cracks at the joints coming back later on?
All advice greatly appreciated
I am decorating my bedroom, my house is about 50 years old, the bedroom has 3 solid plaster walls and 1 skimmed stud wall (between rooms). I have scrapped off the old painted wood chip and backing paper so i am down to the bare walls. I want flat walls to paint so i am prepared to do the filling and sanding to get decent results. However i have only has plasterboard walls in previous houses so i seek a little advice on the correct way to repair the cracks. I don't want to put lining paper up so i want to prepare the walls good enough to paint.
After searching the forum i have read dry wall joint compound is a good product for repairing cracks and filling in, i have used this before when doing a bit of plasterboard joint filling.
1) What i noticed is the wall which the chimney breast is behind seems to have many hairline cracks, so fine you can only see the lines looking closely and you cant even feel them with your finger. Should i do anything to fill these in as i reckon a few coats of good paint should cover them up ok as they don't even have a gap as they are so fine. IS painting suffice or should i be treating these cracks first.
2) I found quite a few cracks which had opened up slightly so i scrapped out a groove along the crack about 3mm deep and intend to fill these in with the dry wall joint compound. Is this suffice or should i be using anything else to treat the cracks ?
3) Any large wide cracks in the plaster i chipped away as some of the plaster seemed a bit soft so i scrapped out a deep channel about 1cm to remove the plaster that was not sound and soft base coat. Again i intend to fill these with dry wall joint compound and wondering if i should do or use anything else to treat the larger cracks.
4)The ceiling in the room has cracks at the joints. It has been done with some plasterboard kind of stuff, don't know what they used 50 years ago, its not plasterboard but similar. ANyway every room in the house has these cracks, i don't want to just fill them in and they appear again so is the best i can do just screw the ceiling boards to the joists securely with dry wall screws and scrape out the joints, joint tape them and skim with joint compound? Will this be a good repair and be enough to stop the cracks at the joints coming back later on?
All advice greatly appreciated
