House in Progress Diary

I understand not being able to afford what you'd like. We would have liked wood windows, but we had so many other expenses, we could not justify the extra money for that. We got high quality vinyl windows instead. We didn't even think of restoring them one by one like you guys, but also our windows were made of poplar a softer wood than oak. I am curious if yours were made of oak... I stripped one pantry window and it was a bear to clean up. Of course, I did most of it without removing the window, which made it alot harder! Sorry this is off your post subject a bit.

Oh, these decisions are SO hard to make. Especially when resources are limited.

Our windows are made out of some wickedly hard wood. Honestly? I'm not sure what they are made of. When we had some windows replaced, they were made of cypress, which is an excellent wood for exposure to the elements. Redoing our windows was out of desperation due to finances...we couldn't afford to replace all of the windows in the house even if we wanted to. It was cheaper to restore them, surprisingly.

I feel your pain, but the upside of your problem is that the decision to be made is so clear based on real life. I think it would have been much harder to live with if the two quotes were closer, such as only the price of a small economy car vs. a truck! I would still pursue a third quote though. I just discovered your site three weeks ago, and I am hooked. I have stayed up into the wee hours catching up on all theposts from day one. I don't know why, but I check in almost daily to read. Honestly I don't know how you keep up such a great blog, and still get other things done. Kudos!

I don't know about cost, but many higher priced homes are built with 2 layer dry wall,1/2in,sheet. The first layer is screwed horizontally & the second layer vertically...A very strong wall... POPS"30"

There are books available about drywall installation. You should try your hand at doing it yourself. After the first wall you will get good at it. You could always hang the wall board yourself and pay someone to do the joint compound work. With the money you will save you could splash on venetian plaster faux finish paint. I don't know anyone who visits me that taps my walls to see what they are made of and certainly not in my bedroom! The secret about joint compound is that until you seal it with paint, it will all wipe off with a wet sponge. So, if you don't like your work you can wipe it away and start over but it is not likely that you would have to.

I am not sure of the price difference for Chicago, and plaster skimcoat is not listed in my estimate book for Chicago, but I can tell you that here in Dallas, TX it's a complicated issue. First you have the low end sheetrock jobs, the same people who do the sheetrock in tract homes, they typically are 6-10man crews and to be honest they workers are typically paid min wage at most, if not less than min wage. Second you have the professional drywall crews who do great work, these guys typically carry a 25% premium over the low end guys. Last you have the guys who do plaster work, they typically here do repair work with lath and plaster or new work with blueboard and skim. They are usually a 10-15% premium over the cost of a premium sheetrock job. An actualy lath and plaster job is typically 300-400% over the price of a low-end job. As with all contractors, there is a huge price range among individual contractors. I have found that if the contractors mainly do their work in restoring homes in high $/SQFT areas, they will charge very high rates. Right now restoration is very hot, and a lot of contractors seem to be taking an advantage of the situation and raising their rates. I still go by the standard suggestion of getting 3 different quotes for any work.

I second Gary's recommendation. As you may or may not know, we're on the tail end of our attic renovation, which included drywalling, a first-time experience for both of us. It was surprisingly simple, though in our case, involved some nasty variables that required some help from a friend with lots of experience. It took 40 (!) sheets to do our attic, so you can imagine that plaster was absolutely out of the question, and really, so was a drywall contractor. It came out remarkably well and one of the things we learned is that drywall compound is your friend. :)

Even if you just did the sheet hanging yourself, you can certainly save some money that can be spent on a more noticeable aspect of the finish work.

Remember starting to learn about dry-wall 60 yrs ago, then building first house in'51 !! What memories, struggling to cut, fit and hang those buggers- and find where to cut for outlets. But the mixing of mud and applying coats to all joints, the sanding, etc. No wonder I'm so bald ! Now with textured paints, you can get by, tho I realize that's not your idea of true restoration.

I agree about getting more quotes. If you had a car accident, you wouldn't not fix your car if you got a high quote from just one body shop. The difference between drywall and plaster is quite noticeable visually. Plus, plaster deadens sound so much better, which could be a benefit someday if you have teenage kids with different musical tastes. :) We had skim coating done and while it was expensive, it wasn't so much more so than drywall. Even though these are not your public spaces, they will be your rest and respite spaces and you deserve them to be every bit as nice as the rest of the house. Good luck in your search.

I agree with the posters who said do it yourself (depending on a few variables). We are currently restoring our bathroom, and we had no choice but to tear out all of the plaster and lathe because it was so riddled with mold and falling apart. Due to some severe moisture issues and of course, budget issues, we decided to go with drywall, specifically, greenboard (moisture resistant). (We also had to install a combo fan/light - not period, I know, but SO neccesary, and I found the most period-looking/stylish one I could find). So, my husband is hanging the drywall himself (with help from me where I can - I have a bad back) and finding it very easy. The one catch is that our bathroom is only a 36 sq. ft. space, so that makes it astronomically easier to finish. (I don't know what size space your'e talking about.) It might save $ for other projects, but then again, if the contractor is super cheap, it may make sense to save your energy and labor for other things. Its worth looking into, though. Oh, and Gramp K is right, you may be able to find a good paint that will give a more "plaster-y" look, though I am looking and still haven't found it.... ALSO, we have original woodwork we are restoring that will hopefully be the focal point of the room, and make the walls not so noticeable : )

Hey,

A few months back This Old House ran a short article on plaster skimcoating. They estimated that that skimcoating will cost you about 25% more than drywall. Sure, local markets vary but, as other have suggested upstream, you may want to get another quote.

This is something I would like to do in our house, although we're thinking of taking it one room at a time. I've spoken with a few people in Chicago. If you want names for another quote, let me know.

You guys are amazing and I don't doubt that you can do anything you put your minds to. Saying that my exeperiece with skim coating is that it is an art. The more experienced the professional, the more happy you are with the job. My advise is if you do look further into other contractors look also at experience. Talk with individuals who have hired them.
We have skim-coat, and I love our walls. They are something people comment on when they see the house. But I understand compromise. I had to give up structured wiring, a whirl pool claw foot tub, reproduction wall paper, those nifty hidden vents, and probably many other things I no longer remember. But to me it was worth it. Like any relationship, choose your battles. You won't do the house any good by allowing it to be reposessed.
But anyway. Here are the stats on our job. Our house is approx. 3,000 sq. ft. and it cost us around $2 a sq. ft. here in the middle of no-where Iowa. We had a one-man band, with 15 years of experiece and glowing reccomendations from friends, do the work and it took him 6 months.

So many good suggestions her! My two cents:
Third quote is a must. You owe yourselves that before committing.

Skimcoating is a VERY difficult skill to master. I've tried and just failed miserably.

Pops is right~ while plaster does have a different look and is more solid acoustically, you can get a very solid feeling and sounding wall by layering gyp board and insulating. The sound is much more "dead" than the bright , "live" sound of a plaster room, but you can stop sound from travelling just as well.

If you can frame the walls, you can DEFINITELY hang board. Give it a shot~ you can always bring in a contractor if you don't get the hang of it. You can also bring in someone just to do the mudwork. Which is a pain. I hate that bit.

As always, I recommend strongly agaist getting "fake" anything. Buildings are like people~ the best ones don't try to be something they're not, they exemplify what they are. Whatever wall you choose, just do it well and take justified pride in that.

If you do decide to hang it....consider renting a "Panel Lift" to help...makes life much eaiser.

I'm sorry if I missed the information, but could you please let us know the cost of plaster skim coating? Thank you.

Jen--You didn't miss it, we haven't posted the actual quotes. In fact, we decided early on that we aren't comfortable posting any quotes from contractors on this site--quotes can be very specific to a time and place, so we're nervous they can be misleading. We also know our contractors appreciate this, and we don't want anything to get in the way of getting the best folks to work on our home.

As a result, we just talk in terms of orders of magnitude and trends..hopefully you can understand where we're coming from on that.

I just went through this with our ceilings. Took quotes for plaster and drywall from multiple contractors and asked them their pricing for either scenario. Quotes consistently came back 30-40% higher for the plaster option, so we went with drywall.

Thought you might find this interesting!

link

I would get at LEAST one more, and maybe 2 or three more quotes before proceeding with the drywall. You might find a plasterer inbetween big jobs who might not mind picking up a small residential job.

To me, nothing screams RENOVATION like a drywall room or two in a otherwise plaster house. Maybe I'm sensitive to it, but I can usually tell whether a wall is drywall or plaster without touching it, and from a distance. If it was me, I would look at this as an investment, and splurge on it, even if it means I would have to put off the purchase of alot of other things I wanted until later. You'd be surprised, in a year or two (or four!) you can get that fixture or door or trim pieces that you wanted. These things can be added later. The plaster walls you spend money on now will last 50 or 100 years or however long until the next poor people renovate!!!

If you do proceed with the drywall, I would try it myself. As others have pointed out, it is very easy once you get the knack of it, the tools you will need are few, and joint compound is your friend. The only downside is that it will take much longer to do it yourself, and you'll probably make a much bigger mess than if you hired pros. Good luck with whatever you choose :)

The walls in our circa 1900 Victorian are in pretty bad shape - water damage has caused large holes where the plaster is crumbling. I finally convinced my strictly-DIY husband to get an estimate from a plasterer - we decided it would be worth the money and time saved to have the walls done professionally, since there's so much other stuff to keep us busy. But after seeing the place the contractor didn't even want to give me an estimate range - I think he just assumed it was out of our budget. There aren't that many plaster contractors by us who will do residential jobs like this. It would be nice to at least get an idea of what the cost would be before we give in and try to do this ourselves.

If you're choosing sheetrock over plaster, I would always recommend doing it yourself. I was surprised how funa and easy it was the first time I sheetrocked a room.