Plastering and Painting - Bad Finish - Advise Needed

[ecosln]

We are currently renovating a house. Due to move in soon and would like some consensus on the below about what we should have expected

Our builder quoted for the following:
• Skim walls and ceilings where necessary
• Paint walls, ceilings and woodwork
• Total £X

Due to our budget we asked him if he could take the painting off as we had a painter recommended that would do it for cash and considerably less.

He removed this from quote and no more was said.

Walls were skimmed. We asked him to make sure all imperfections that you could see with the naked eye be removed and the painter would fill any imperfections thrown up by mist coat.

painters arrived to paint the upstairs.

The walls have large trowel marks all over them, the ceilings look like waves. There are huge dents in the walls.

The painter said the plastering was unacceptable – but painted anyway as he was booked and had no other job. He did the mist coat but did not sand down the trowel marks as these were all over the walls.

The builder accepted his plasterer had rushed in some areas but upstairs he blamed the painter for not sanding down the walls. The painter says he should not have to sand down walls with huge towel marks on.

Luckily downstairs another person has plastered half of it so there does not appear to be such issues. The remaining plaster is rough and bumpy. Our builder will be fixing this but is resentful because this is apparently the painter’s job.

Builder is now saying he doesn’t normally allow others on site – but he never mentioned this previously and happily removed it. At the end of the day we could have been doing it ourselves.

So my questions are as follows:

• Were we unreasonable for thinking that paying for skimmed walls means that the plaster should have been ready to paint with only small imperfections being dealt with by painters.

• What are our options on the badly plastered walls that have been painted.

Really appreciate any feedback you have. Lots of lessons learnt on this but having spent six figures we need this fixed and are not prepared to live with bumpy wavy trowel marked walls!

Hmm, I think the painter was mad to have painted the poor plasterwork when he knew that it couldn't be improved and it was a little foolish to let him. But the real fault was the builder who contracted the plasterer as, if there are ripples, there is very little a decorator can do.

So, in conclusion, the builder should have remedied the poor plastering immediately but your decorator has muddied the waters by painting it. As painting plaster does not actually affect anyone's ability to reskim it though, your builder should just suck it up and get it redone.

Freshly skimmed walls should be smooth enough to paint directly over, obvious trowel marks are not acceptable. Any issues such as holes from old fixings and gaps round woodwork should be dealt with by the decorator to ensure a good finish. Your builder is having you on!

My dh is a (excellent) plasterer and has just finished our living room. The walls and ceiling were polished to a glass smooth finish.
Did you pay him upfront?

thank you both.

yes it was silly to let him paint the walls but he never told us before he painted it and we hadn't noticed immediately prior to painting. We had instructed the builder to get the walls paint ready in the weeks leading up and told him painter would not fix plastering - only fill / remidate small issues etc.

seeing the state of them now i can not believe that we never noticed leading up!

definitely learned from all of this. I think there has been communication issues, naivety on our part but ultimately I am glad that we were not unreasonable in thinking that anyone painting a newly skimmed wall / ceiling should have to sand it down!

thanks again

icanseeformiles - we are paying the builder stage payments as part of the build. apparently plasterer was on a daily rate..... I have not seen your walls but am v jealous!

I have had 3 plasterers over the years, none of them left the walls with any trowels marks.

The last guy I had was amazing, in fact I watched him do it, he never even got dirty from mixing or plastering. His clothes were pristine

The walls were like glass, soooo smooth.

No decorator should have to sand any newly plastered walls. I have personally sanded entire walls after removing wallpaper, but that was to avoid the cost of a skim coat.

Your plasterer sounds rubbish. It is a real skill to plaster well. ICanSee I take my hat off to your DH.