Should I replace a crumbling plaster ceiling with drywall?
Peeked behind a dropped ceiling on our top floor and found a crumbling plaster ceiling. I’m currently putting together plans and budgeting for a larger renovation. Is plaster on a ceiling worth it? Instead, is drywall okay for ceiling considering how high it is? I’m assuming the price difference is large.
true
in General Discussion 5 years and 8 months ago
14
Please log in, in order to post replies!
14 replies
BKALLDAY | 5 years and 8 months ago
I had to redo some rooms with failing plaster. The cost was stunning but I kept the plaster molds around the perimeter and put up drywall in the main field and then my plaster guy married the edges so it looked great 17 years ago and looks great still. Another winner was changing out the recessed lights meant we didn’t have to worry about chipping away at the plaster. The housings move in and out easily and drywall is simple to repair if we every make a mistake with a blown housing and have to widen the hole to remove it. Good luck..
southsloppy | 5 years and 8 months ago
Late to the party. I have had to fix/renovate the original ceilings in our house twice in the last couple of years. Once on the parlor level where we had a ceiling in decent condition and plasterwork that was worth saving. I had the ceiling skim-coated and it came out looking great. For our one of our rental unit we started recently, the original ceiling was completely falling apart with large chunks separating from the lath. I opted to take it down and replace with sheet rock while managing to keep the original crown mouldings (the medallion was long gone). So in my experience it depends on the condition of the ceiling you are trying to fix up. Cost-wise, for the same size room, demo and rebuild has been a tad more expensive.
cate | 5 years and 8 months ago
The word for that curved ceiling is a coved ceiling.
bbrc
in General Discussion 5 years and 8 months ago
Hmm… we have approx 3500 sqft, in fact.
hkapstein | 5 years and 8 months ago
If you have a few thousand square feet to skimcoat you can do a lot better than $6 in my opinion.
roesteve80 | 5 years and 8 months ago
Sorry, meant over
roesteve80 | 5 years and 8 months ago
It’s a “lip” under round section. Same in bedroom
bbrc
in General Discussion 5 years and 8 months ago
In terms of arriving at a ballpark on price, our contractor quoted us $6/sqft for skim coating walls and ceilings. I have no idea if that’s low, medium, or high (would love some others to weigh in on this, actually!), but if you do decide (and are able) to go this route, that might be a good starting place to estimate cost.
roesteve80 | 5 years and 8 months ago
Yes. It’s been over 15 years, maybe 20
hkapstein | 5 years and 8 months ago
@roesteve80, it sounds like this worked out great. But if I were to face this situation, and the lath were intact, I might try to plaster it with a structolite plaster mix, or for the bold, a lime based mix. However if it doesn’t show, kudos to you for doing a nice job with the seams. There is a risk that as the structure moves over time, the seams will show. But for a small area it may hold up. It sounds like you skimmed over the sheetrock right? Otherwise I think I’d be able to see where the plaster changed over to paper. This is more work if the area being restored is very large.
By the way, I love that rounded edge at the ceiling. In plaster a perfectly square corner is difficult to make, and that is probably why mouldings are typically installed there. But the rounded tray with the picture rail just looks great to me compared to a boxy sheetrock joint at the ceiling. Probably that was from a 1900-1918 or so building? I can’t see much in the picutre. I think you made a great decision to preserve that feature. What’s the deal with the little line between the ceiling and where the plaster rounds down to the wall? With the recessed lighting I might guess that the ceiling was replaced with sheetrock, and a transition installed here. But you explained that the ceiling is all plaster, so what can you tell us about that transition?
roesteve80 | 5 years and 8 months ago
We had a fairly large section in the living room that if I had touched with a broom handle, it would have fallen. My husband and I carefully broke away all the plaster, down to the lathe, and cut it out until we reached “solid” plaster. The bad part was where there had been ~100 years of bathtub leaks from bathroom above. We ended up with a 4 foot square section. We used a piece of sheetrock cut to fit, and “plaster buttons” and using a moveable scaffold, applied lots of joint compound, carefully feathering out where it met original plaster. I challenge neighbors to find where the sheetrock section, and they cannot. We wanted to preserve the rounded tray feature of the ceiling. Replacing the entire ceiling with sheetrock makes saving that almost impossible. [Living room ceiling 1](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:M2t6:livingroomceiling1.jpg.jpg) [Living room ceiling 2](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:7tgA:livingroomceiling2.jpg.jpg)
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hillman-25-Count-10-x-5-8-in-Zinc-Plated-Bonded-Sealing-Washer/3200935?cm_mmc=shp-_-c- _-prd-_-hdw-_-google-_-lia-_–_-fasteners-_-3200935-_-0&store_code=1674&placeholder=null&gclid=CjwKCAiAhc7yBRAdEiwAplGxXwwmU5NBws0Y7vLr4Xde27OzGwggoydddUBD0yn8EJzYK0t3lThH1hoC414QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 5 years and 8 months ago
RE: tin ceilings vs. skim coating, we used both solutions in a number of rooms. Costs are now about the same (although the first two tin ceilings we had done>40 years ago were cheaper than anything but plain Sheetrock—relative costs have since changed.). Both look good Tin ceilings are FAR less messy and much quicker to install. We went with tin for our ground floor kitchen and dining room and, fairly recently, for our master bedroom. We didn’t consider metal ceilings for our parlor floor, but, beautiful as tin can be, that was an aesthetic choice. We’ll probably use Sheetrock soon when we re-do our ground floor laundry room and butler’s pantry, but that’s a practical/economical choice for those purely utilitarian spaces.
hkapstein | 5 years and 8 months ago
This is a question for your plaster pro. Basically the question is, how much does this cost. Plaster work on the ceiling is generally more expensive as the guys don’t like working overhead, and a scaffold much be built. But if it’s only a little more than demolishing and sheetrocking, then I’d pay up to save the plaster, it is better. You’ll have to skimcoat the drywall anyway to match the texture of the plaster elsewhere if you want it to match, and getting the corners right will be tricky. You didn’t mention the condition of the cornice moulding, that might impact your decision.
cate | 5 years and 8 months ago
Depends on how badly it’s crumbling. If it just has cracks or paint hanging down, you can skim coat it for not crazy money. If the plaster is separating from the underlying material, then stabilizing it could be more difficult and expensive. Usually people do drywall patching when there is just a section that has been opened up. Removing an entire existing ceiling is not easy (and it’s very dusty and disruptive). Covering it with painted pressed tin is also a relatively affordable option, and it can look nice, depending on the room. You might want to contact a few plaster experts to have them take a look and give you a bid.