Home Improvement Contractor - Licensed Contractors
Drywall contractors, will you answer some questions for me please?
I am planning to start work on a spare bedroom. My house is nearly 100 years old and the walls and ceilings are plaster. The ceiling in this room suffered some water damage as did an interior wall. I haven't stripped the wallpaper yet (which is also on the ceilings) so I don't know how bad the damage is. However, there is considerable staining on the paper in those areas so I know they must be bad. I am definitely having a new ceiling put in. My question is, should I remove all the plaster to have new drywall put in or will the contractor I hire just prefer to hang the drywall over the plaster? Will they just patch the cracks in the plaster on the walls or should I have the drywall hung all over? I haven't begun to look for a contractor yet, but figured I could strip wallpaper and tear down the existing walls if need be. But if they are going to lay drywall over top then there is no point in all that right? Thanks for your help!
Public Comments
- I am not a drywall contractor, but I have remodeled 6 old homes. The one I am presently in was built in 1865. I removed all the plaster walls to expose the studs underneath. This allowed me to run new electric, insulate, and then lay the drywall over the top. The drawbacks are dust, lots of demo work, and you may have to address studs of different sizes. They weren't too critical of stud sizes back then. They made up the difference in the wavey wall with the lath and plaster overlay. The advantages are you can inspect the outer wall, get better insulation, recepticles where you want them, and have a nice clean, new room! Sounds like a nice project, good luck!
- Since the house is that old I would tear it down to the studs. That way you can see everything. You may have damage that you don't know about,and you could add outlets if you need them.I know outlets in old houses are usually few and far between. Good Luck.
- Do to the fact that thier is presents of previous water damage , take down the existing walls to the studs don't cover up a possible problem that my occur in the futher and damage all your hard work redoing the room . If possible take down the plaster walls yourslef enjoy the project , this will save you some cost.
- If the walls and ceiling are still solid and not pulled loose from the wood slats underneath, I would refinish the plaster. I AM a drywall/plaster contractor and I did this to a house built in the 1860's and it turned out beautiful and was nice to have the original plaster intact. However if it is loose and moving, some contractors might hang or laminate 1/4" drywall overtop of it and try to pull it tight with screws. This is alot cheaper than gutting and redoing but if the plaster is loose it could be a temporary fix. If the plaster and slats are loose the best decision is to gut it and rehang new drywall. Hope this helps.
- what it ultimately comes down to is money and if you want your room repaired or remodeled. as soon as you remove the plaster walls in a hundred year old house you are almost forced to update everything within the room and its hard to estimate a cost because you just can't be sure what you have until you have opened up the walls. Laminating your walls with new drywall is a practical solution for old plaster and you would typically use 1/4" or 3/8" thickness Sheetrock. If i personally owned your home and planned on being there for a long time i would go for the remodel, if selling is in your future or moneys tight the latter, it would be hard to get your money back out of that room if you would ever sell.
