I hate plasterboard

[plasticpigeon]

i have nothing useful to say here. I'm just writing to a group of people who may understand more than my friends or family. I have been trying to find a plasterer in the cultural black hole of south east Birmingham who would be willing to lime plaster my kitchen. I was less bothered about the small back bedroom, and after about 5 plasterers came round, all of whom refused to do lime at all, who just wanted to board and who would actually get visibly irritated and slightly insulting when I even suggested wet plastering, and one who would do the kitchen for £2500 I resigned myself to boarding the back bedroom as i thought it would be cheaper and easier as that is what everyone wants to do. i stuck to my guns on the kitchen though. I eventually was put in touch with a youngish guy who seems pretty clued up who said that although he had never done lime plastering he had done sand cement internal and external rendering and couldn't see that it would be much different if he used hydraulic lime. That I think seems reasonable. however I had got it into my head that the back bedroom was going to be boarded and skimmed and this commenced yesterday. Today I was saying to the plasterer that the bedroom fireplace that is mounted directly on the brick wall was very shallow so could he wet plaster the chimney breast around the fireplace. he replied that it would have been easier to wet plaster the whole room as the walls are not very straight and that it would have looked more authentic and been nicer with solid sounding walls and would have been cheaper as materials would have been cheaper!!! i only asked for boarding as I thought that is what he would want to do. In fact he hates boarding and would have rather done lime than board. I'm really just saying that I got ground down by the miriad of tradesmen telling me what I wanted and didn't stick to my guns. Eventually I second guessed a decent tradesman and shouldn't have. The lesson is not to compromise too much, believe in ones own judgement, and certainly don't do like I did, and not even ask for what I wanted as I didn't think the person I was asking would want to do it. I feel like a total fool now, and will have to put up with clinically straight hollow sounding glued on walls. boo. thanks for listening.

 

[LadyArowana]

Oh dear, sympathies to you. I can understand how that happens though. I think one of the reasons so many people here do things themselves is that they get fed up with tradesmen who won't do what they want, or won't do it properly. I have only done a small project, but have fond memories of supervising the bathroom tiles being laid. They were the riven ceramic stone effect type with maybe 8 different styles. I didn't want 2 the same next to each other. The tiler didn't think I would be able to tell. He was wrong. He had to pull some up and move them and grumbled that I was fussing about nothing until I rotated the tile and proved they were the same.

Luckily my main builder was lovely and appreciated the fact that I knew what I wanted, and if it meant a bit of extra effort by him or me then that was what was going to happen. I think it helped that when we were first discussing the project I said I wanted to replace the front door with one that matched the originals ( Edwardian mansion block ) and he said the door wasn't a problem but the letter plate design would be. He thought I would find something 'in the style of' via the salvage route. After many many hours with the trusty interweb I found an exact match at a place in Newcastle, he was so gobsmacked with that lucky find that I never had to argue about anything else. In fact he was supportive when I told the kitchen designer that none of their approved ranges of handles were what I wanted, and that we would find our own, he thought that if I could find a 100 year old brass fitting then a few new handles wouldn't be a big deal.

Good luck with the rest of the project, at least the kitchen will be all the way you want it and you spend more time in there than a bedroom.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks for you sympathies lady A. I'm certain your abode is far superior to most becuase of your attention to detail.

Since owning this place I have done a lot of bricklaying, all the plumbing, some electrics and will do yet more shortly, made a sash and a casement window and much other woodwork, and a huge amount of labouring, partly because I had a bad experience with builders, but I just don't have the time to do it all!!!! This mistake was nothing to do with the plasterer but my error of judgement, which is why it is so frustrating!!! Hopefuly i'll be able to forget it when it is painted (unlikely), and nothing is irreversible!