Advice on plastering

Stephen93

Ripped out the old fireplace and obviously have a hole left. Looking to cover it up then finish the wall to make it match the rest.

No idea where to start so any advice appreciated.

Is it a matter or using a plasterboard to cover the whole section and blend it in or use plaster straight onto the brickwork and something else for the hole?

Thanks in advance.

Hellrazer

I only did the same recently.

Try cut one piece to exactly the right size of the hole inside the existing plaster.

I made a frame from 2x4 that I bolted inside the fireplace for the plaster board to be nailed to.

Then I just skimmed it building it up in layers till it was in line with the existing plasterboard.

10-10-20

Did you seal off the chimney or not? That's a big item to deal with correctly first.

I'd back-fill the throat and firebox with blocks / mortar (as long as it's properly sealed) and then do what Hellrazer mentioned by filling the remaining depth with plasterboard. You can then get a big bag of bonding (it's sticky plaster with vermiculite) and build-up the depth to a level, then finish it off with skim-plaster. You'll have to play with the edges as they are very hard to get right.

It's a job alright to get a good finish, so plan on having a back-out plan if it all goes to pot and you need to distract the eye.

Explosive_Cornflake

I'll give most things a go, but plastering is hard, and that's a really visibile area.

I've had success using polyfilla smoothover system, but it was in the corner of a hall.

It's not a strong or robust as skimcoat, but with enough sanding you'll get it smooth. Get the surface underneath as flat as possible, be it spray foam and compound etc.

Personally I'd be getting a plasterer for somehwhere so front and centre though.

GreeBo

It might be worth your while to hack of more of the existing plaster/board at least to the edges.

Then you can remove more towards the ceiling until you get to a joint (presumably a tapered joint)

Then you can just fit an entire sheet on the horizontal and trim to fit. That way you just need to skim one tapered joint and you can just use some corner beads on the two edges. This is way easier than skimming an entire wall or butt joints and you wont notice the difference if you paint the entire chimney breast.

When installing the new board, just make sure that you get it packed out to the finish level of the existing board since you wont be skimming.

You just need to check that the existing plasterboard was installed horizontally but a bit of poking about can confirm that.

As a backup in case it was done vertically, you could trim back to ~4ft (width of a board) and stick a mantlepiece/shelf to cover the single butt joint.

Or failing that its no difference to a plasterer to skim the entire thing vs one patch.