I had a similar problem when I took down some shelves that were glued
to the wall (grrrr). Took off long irregular strips of plaster topcoat.
I just got a bucket of that premix drywall mud and a couple of drywall
knives, I think 6-inch and 10-inch, and filled/skim-coated that gouges.
Then sanded & painted. It takes a little practice but after the first
couple you will have it down. Little harder on the ceiling than on a
wall, but not too bad. Use a mister to moisten the gouged plaster a
little, otherwise sometimes the mud just falls out taking a layer of
powdery plaster with it. Any drywall finishing book or tape will show
how to do it. Drywall knives are just big, flexy putty knives. The
tools and materials are cheap. You have to sand it smooth, too, which
is messy but not too hard to master either. If you are not interested
in acquiring these new skills, you could have a drywaller do the
patching for not a whole lot of $$. I would recommend keeping your
plaster if you can, rather than replacing it with drywall -- first of
all, tearing out the plaster is a really big job; secondly, the plaster
is much more soundproof than the drywall would be. Another option is
to drywall OVER the plaster; I haven't tried that so I don't know the
pitfalls. -- H


Bernie Hunt wrote:
I've starte remodeling my den and took down the wonderful 1970's foam beams
from the ceiling. Unfortunately they were attached with construction
adheasive. The bond of the adheasive to the skim coat of plaster on the
ceiling is stronger than the skim coats adhesion to the plaster, so it's
peeling off the skim coat.

Any suggestions on what to do? Or should I just plan on patching the skim
coat?

The room is only about 15x15, so maybe dropping the whole ceilding and
drywalling it is an option. I will need to cut some cans in for lighting and
move the ceiling fan.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bernie