Full House Re-Skim & Ceiling Replacement by a Plasterer in Ealing

This project took place at a Victorian terraced house in Lambeth, London — a property type commonly found across south and west London, including Ealing. The house had undergone a full strip-out prior to our arrival, with wallpaper removed throughout and old ceiling plaster taken down to expose the original timber joists and wooden lath boards above. The property was clearly mid-renovation, with carpets still in the living room and electrical cables left hanging loose from the ceiling void pending replastering.

Image one shows the living room prior to any ceiling work. The ceiling at this stage was painted a dark brown and appeared heavily stained, consistent with age-related deterioration and possible historic water ingress from above. The walls had been stripped back to the bare plaster substrate — wallpaper had been removed, leaving a rough, patchy surface with visible score marks and adhesive residue across all elevations. Electrical cables had been pulled through and left dangling, and multiple raw cable terminations were visible at wall level, indicating a recent rewire. The wall surface showed no bonding or preparation had yet taken place. Image two reveals the ceiling in the hallway area had been fully stripped back to expose the raw timber joists and original tongue-and-groove boarding, with multiple electrical cables and conduits running between the joists — all of which needed to be accommodated before any new plasterboard could be fixed.

The scope of work covered the full re-skim of all wall surfaces throughout the property, combined with a full ceiling replacement in the hallway and adjacent areas where the original plaster had been completely stripped back to the joists. In the living room, the existing ceiling was retained and prepared for a skim coat, while the walls across the entire ground floor required re-skimming following the full wallpaper strip. The hallway ceiling required new 12.5mm plasterboard to be measured, cut, and fixed directly to the exposed timber joists, working around the newly installed electrical cables and conduits that ran between the joist bays. Wall surfaces throughout were assessed for suction levels before any plaster was applied — areas with particularly high suction from old bare plaster were treated with a diluted PVA bonding solution prior to skimming. The staircase area was also included in the ceiling boarding works, with boards cut to follow the rake of the staircase line. Cable drops were carefully marked and left accessible at the correct positions for the electrician to connect. The project was coordinated around the ongoing renovation programme, with plastering works sequenced after the rewire was sufficiently complete to allow boarding to proceed without obstruction.

Before any plaster was applied to the walls, all surfaces were checked for loose or delaminating plaster. Any sections that had blown were tapped to identify hollow areas and those sections were cut back to a solid edge. The bare wall substrate was then given a PVA bonding coat — one part PVA to four parts water — brushed across all wall faces and allowed to become tacky before skimming commenced. In the hallway, the exposed joist bays were cleared of debris and the electrical cables were carefully routed and secured against the joists using cable clips before new 12.5mm plasterboard sheets were measured and fixed using 3.5 x 42mm plasterboard screws at 150mm centres into each joist.

With the hallway ceiling plasterboard fixed and jointed using scrim tape along all board joints, the ceiling was given a bonding coat of Thistle Hardwall to bring up any low areas and provide a consistent suction base. Once dried, the ceiling received a scratch coat of British Gypsum multi-finish plaster, applied at approximately 2–3mm thickness and ruled flat using a feather edge. The finishing coat was then applied thinly and trowelled to a tight, flat face, with the plaster worked in sections to maintain a wet edge across the full ceiling span. The walls throughout the property followed the same two-coat approach — a scratch coat was applied first to fill and level the irregular bare plaster surface, allowed to firm up, and then the finishing coat was applied and polished flat using a clean steel trowel. Electrical back-box positions were kept clear throughout and the edges were finished neatly. Image three shows the living room ceiling mid-progress — the freshly skimmed ceiling is visible in its pink wet-plaster state, contrasting clearly with the unworked hallway ceiling section still visible in the top left corner of the frame. The walls at this stage remained unfinished, still showing the stripped substrate awaiting their own skim coats once the ceiling works were complete.

The primary challenge on this project was the hallway ceiling, where the old plaster had been completely removed down to the raw joists. Multiple electrical cables — including mains ring circuit cabling and earth bonding conductors — had been run between the joist bays as part of the ongoing rewire. Fixing new plasterboard to the joists required each board to be carefully offered up and marked for cable positions before fixing, to avoid trapping cables against the joist face or compressing them beneath the board. The staircase area added further complexity, as the ceiling line followed the staircase pitch, requiring boards to be scribed and cut at an angle rather than fixed as standard flat runs.

All electrical cables were secured to the sides of the joists using cable clips rather than left loose across the joist bays, ensuring they were clear of the board fixing line. Each plasterboard sheet was measured and cut on the floor before being lifted into position and checked against the joist layout, with pencil marks indicating cable drop positions so they could be pierced cleanly through the board face. The raked staircase ceiling section was measured using a digital angle finder and boards were cut to the correct pitch on site. Once all boards were fixed, scrim tape was applied to all joints and the ceiling was ready for plastering without any cable conflicts.

The finished living room ceiling — visible in image three — shows a flat, evenly skimmed surface in its freshly applied state, with a consistent pink tone indicating an even coat thickness across the full ceiling area. The contrast between the completed ceiling and the as-yet-unfinished hallway ceiling visible in the top corner of the same image clearly illustrates the transformation from raw stripped substrate to finished plaster face. The walls, once re-skimmed, provided a solid, flat surface ready to accept paint or wallpaper without any filling or lining paper required.

The client was able to hand the property back to their decorator within the agreed programme. All walls and ceilings throughout the ground floor were re-skimmed and ready for painting, with electrical back-boxes flush and accessible. The hallway ceiling, which had been completely open to the joists, was fully boarded and skimmed to match the rest of the property. The client noted that the sequencing of work around the electrician had been handled without any delays to either trade.

A full house re-skim following a strip-out and rewire involves far more than simply applying plaster to walls. The ceiling replacement in the hallway required accurate boarding around live electrical cables, correct screw spacing into timber joists, and the ability to manage a raked ceiling line at the staircase. Applying multi-finish plaster over a bare, high-suction substrate without correct PVA priming will result in the plaster drying too fast, cracking, and losing adhesion. Getting the sequence right — boarding before skimming, priming before plastering, ceilings before walls — is what produces a result that holds long term.