plaster or drywall?

Allnewtoday

I've got ugly textured paint in our first house, it needs to go. as this is my first "home improv" project (and I have intermediate skills) is it easier to:
- sand lightly, coat textured walls with plaster till smooth, prime then paint
or
- knock out old stuff with textured ugly, buy new drywall, joint tape, spackle then prime and paint?

I already have tools to smooth out plaster, hammer, paint and orbital sander.

Thanks!

Windows

Unless you are redoing the electrical or have some other need to get inside the walls, it is faster, easier and cheaper by far to skim coat than replace.

Allnewtoday

hehe, you found all my posts, Windows. I figured the more topic threads, the more varied the responses! I totally agree with you after thinking about all the work it would take to drywall. I'm going today to buy some joint compound from Lowes, I was told that Beadex is decent stuff. At this point, I'll do some more research before I buy, but I am getting anxious to move in to my house already. Not to mention the lease is up on our apt. at the end of April!

Windows

Sorry about that. I do not mean to hog all the questions. Only because I have recently completed a very similar project do I have such 'certain opinions' about this subject.

Allnewtoday

That's ok! All the posts were really different questions about the same room/project, and posted to the appropriate places. Thanks for so much help. I used the joint compound yesterday and it came out so smooth!

I have another room unsanded, with the ugly texture, and I think I can just use joint compund over what's already there and it'll be fine. I spread it on yesterday in a test spot, and I'll go today to see if it's smooth enough to paint on without everything "falling off" the wall.

ccarlisle

Well, good luck with that because in my experience - and depending on how thick the texture is - that treatment with joint compound is going to be very hard to complete.

Many times and in spite of my trying to keep old plaster, replacement of old textures is too complicated. You may be able to do a small section, sand it and make it look reasonably flat but that's not the same thing as a whole wall.

Allnewtoday

I went back the next day, before I read your post, and noticed that I wasn't happy with the results of the test spot. I had my husband sand down the high peaks and I'll go in today with joint compound and fill in till smooth. I'm very happy with the results of doing that in another room I did, and I'm ready to use my hand sander to smooth the compound to ready it for painting.

Doing things this way only took me two days compared to sanding the WHOLE stinkin thing, which took me almost a week and the paint still came out looking awful.

I'd happily call someone in to come replace the wallboard completely, but some of the walls are plaster, and I just don't have time or money. (have to be out of apt. by 30th and budget is limited)

Willie T

The problem with 'skim coating' an existing textured wall is that there are literally hundreds of extra thick and 'high' bumps all over the place that "bounce" your trowel or knife. It makes it VERY difficult to get a smooth wall.

If you have the room at the wall ends (no door or window trim or anything like that in the way), the easiest way to go is to knock down (grind off) any really serious high spots, and cover the whole wall with new 1/4" drywall, gluing and screwing it right to the old wall surface.

In fact, I'm doing that for a friend at the end of this month.

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Willie T