On Oct 20, 2:54*pm, KOS wrote:
Hi.. *I have a bathroom that will be remodeled.. House is 50 years
old.. Bathroom has plaster walls.. The current tile goes up about 5
feet high.. Then from there to the ceiling its plaster....
Some people say we should demo the entire wall...Even the part where
the tile stops... Completely remove all plaster walls to studs...
Other people say, you can save money... Just demo the tile..... Where
the plaster goes to the ceiling, just feather it with sheetrock and
you wont be able to tell the difference... What do you think? I'm
thinking its better to demo all the walls to the studs... any advice
I guess it depends on how you will be finishing the walls - and the
wall/celing joint.
I can speak from exerience that in my 54 YO house, the painted plaster
walls of the original structure look different than the painted walls
in the drywalled addition. The finished surface is just not the same.
The plaster walls and ceilings have more "character" than the drywall,
with a certain amount of wave and a glossier surface, even with the
same paint.
In addition (assuming paint again) you'll be dealing with 2 different
surface materials in an area where you need to be particularly
concerned with a perfectly proper paint job due to moisture.
I don't know how thick your plaster walls are, but mine are 3/4"
thick. There's 3/8" of a horizontal, tongue and groove, brown paper
covered gypsum product and then 3/8" of plaster. I'd need to shim out
(or double up) the drywall to get it line up at the edges. Even then I
don't know if I could get it perfect based on the irregularities of
the plaster.
So that makes you lean towards a complete tearoff, right? Well...
The downside of a complete tearout is the ceiling to wall joint. In my
house, there's metal lath like this in the wall/ceiling joint:
http://www.cemcosteel.com/fv-560.aspx
Removing the wall without disturbing the ceiling is not an easy task.
After 54 years, the plaster is brittle and the lath is pretty rusted.
It's far from a joyful experience to remove that last 3 or 4 inches of
wall - unless you're going to do the ceiling also.