Plastering
This is the most complicated piece of plastering I've ever done.
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The felt on the flat roof above, had deteriorated gradually over time, which initially caused only minor staining on the ceiling, followed by cracking of the old plaster and then finally rain water began to drip through.
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The felt was completely renewed by a qualified roofer and the entire ceiling was taken down and re boarded. And I was contracted to set the beads and then plaster.
This all took place in 2012. Back then, I didn't know as much about the internet as I do today and I never dreamed I would one day build my own website. So I didn't even think to take too many photos in order to document each stage of the entire process. I simply took 3 photos of the end result as I was so proud of my achievement.
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Normally when plastering, any minimal irregularities of corners or edges or any dips in the plasterboard can be smoothed out and blended in and will remain undetectable to the naked eye. Which always allows for a tolerance of a millimetre or 2 here and there when setting beads. In this case however, with the skylights so close, and each tier so close to the next, setting one single bead wrongly by just the tiniest amount, would have shown up horrendously in the end product. You would immediately be able to see in the photos that one, or more, was out of square. Resulting in the necessity of it having to be redone.
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Each bead therefore had to be set at perfect right angles, each tier had to be flat and also had to be equally in line with its neighbour. And I had to cut and set 13 separate beads.
Using several different sized spirit levels, I first had to identify the lowest points of all plasterboard at each and every tier. The lowest point being where you set the first bead and then ensure that all the other beads are also set to that same lowest level.
As if that wasn't tricky enough, I also had to make sure that each tier was square with the skylight frames and the other tiers.
And as if all that wasn't tricky enough, I also had to make sure that none of the sections of upright plasterboard stuck out further than the beads.
In short: Everything had to be set at right angles, in square, centrally located and all equidistant to each other throughout with measurements being checked from every edge, to every edge and every corner, to every corner.
Setting all the beads took about half a day. And by the time I'd got everything set up and organised and then completed all the other necessary preparations, that was the first day's work over.
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The plastering itself, took almost 2 full days. It wasn't possible to do it all in one go - I had to do it in separate sections. I'd describe it as fiddly rather than difficult. The hardest part, was that the shelves (covered by plastic sheeting) went so close, high up to the ceiling, that there was no room to get my trowel in there. So I had to use a smoothing blade to get into all the surrounding areas of the ceiling above the shelves, whilst simultaneously twisting my spine and craning my neck so that I could lean in and see into where I was plastering.
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For comparison:
To see two further examples of my plastering work:
Please click and scroll down to Picture 7.
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Please click and scroll down to Pictures 2 &3.
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(And please note how clean and tidy the areas were after I finished plastering).