BedStuy Reno
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July 22, 2006
Plaster, Our Worthy Adversary
We've got to hand it to plaster. This stuff won't quit. Knock it down, it keeps coming back. The way you have to deal with it is threefold, maybe even four. Fold. First is pulling it off the wall, usually easy enough to do. Where the plaster is on lathe, and where it is already cracked and crumbling, or has sustained water damage over the years, it pulls down like paper. Or butter. Buttered paper, because it seems so light coming down, and it slides off the wall so readily. It just takes a little coaxing with a crobar or some like-minded tool.
Once it hits the floor, you start to see just how much material you are dealing with. What was once a wall is now a small mountain in the corner. The stuff goes everywhere, and you have to bag it. This is part two. Like Waiting for Godot, we keep telling ourselves that the dumpster will come, and when it does, we will have to be ready. The dumpster is surely coming! If not today, than surely tomorrow. So we bag our plaster. This involves a shovel and a lot of heavy-duty bags. With the sound of the shovel scrape, memories come flooding back of northeast winters as a kid shoveling neighbors' driveways for 10 bucks. It's like that but the stuff is heavier, and you're inside a living room, not out on a driveway.
For those who are into it, we have now switched from using contractor bags to trash-compactor bags. The problem with the contractor bags is that they are so large, it's very tempting to fill each one with a lot of plaster, and quickly you've got a bag that's too heavy to move. The trash-compactor bags are just about as tough (2.5mil?) and since they are smaller, they temper the urge to go nuts and fill the thing up all the way.
Which brings us to the third step in dealing with this plaster. Once it is bagged, you have a lot of heavy bags. And they're everywhere. So you have to stack them up, to leave yourself a little space to move through each room. What you wind up with is a new wall (of these bags), built of plaster. This is how plaster manages to come back at you - it morphs into this second wall. A hundred years old, broken, battered, but still kicking.
The fourth step will be the lugging of these endless heavy bags out to the dumpster.
Ahh plaster, you have been a worthy adversary.
Comments
That's a lot of plaster you're pulling down! Are you sure you need to do all of that? Do you plan to move walls too? In many cases you could sheetrock right over plaster, but I don't know your plans. But hey, if you're going that far, more power to you! Take advanage of the open walls and add insulation & upgrade everything you can think of, plumbing & electric. I think you guys are doing a great job!
Posted by: Rick at July 23, 2006 12:22 PM
We have asked ourselves the same question - but in the end, our feeling was exactly as you said - if we opened all the walls, we could have good access in the house to do our plumbing and electric work, not to mention add insulation. It's also giving us access to the pocket doors in places too, so that we can fix the hardware there.
Posted by: Peter at July 24, 2006 8:37 AM
Are you going to re-plaster or put up sheetrock?
Posted by: new bed stuy at July 26, 2006 12:28 PM
you should try these woven bags instead. I have disposed of a bunch of plaster too in my reno and these little woven bags are great and dont rip.
Keep up the good work. You might want to when you sheet rock put up stuff called blue board or imperial board then skim coat with plaster. It gives it that old world look again.
Here is a link for some bags
http://daybag.com/industrial/woven.html
Posted by: TomPLG at July 26, 2006 6:48 PM
thanks for the info, I'll look into the blue board and imperial board. Would love to get the old world look if we can fit it within our third world budget.
as for the woven bags, we saw those around and new they would be perfect! however, we couldn't find them at home depot and went with the compactor bags instead.
Posted by: Peter at July 27, 2006 2:59 PM
Blue board and skimcoating is a nice surface but a great deal of time and effort..... even if you're experienced in skimcoating it's a big project. Give it some thought.
Posted by: Rick at July 30, 2006 2:45 PM
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