Alternative to plasterboard and plaster

Helen Barber

Helen Barber

Helen Barber

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Joined
9 Aug 2020
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492
Looking to buy a new house soon... Is there a type of board you can fit to the walls that you can paint or even wallpaper to save expensive.

The room In talking about will be a basement games room for myself :)
 
One of the previous houses I lived in was just plasterboard which was taped and filled over and painted. Cheap, easy and quick. A pro could do a whole room and have it ready to paint in under 3 days, that would t be 3 full days either, you have to wait 24 hours for the Easy Fill to dry and you need to do 2 layers.

Plasterboard is probably the cheapest material you can use which is why it’s so prevalent these days. That said if you are doing a basement there are lots of considerations you need to think about to keep it both warm and prevent damp.
 
Three out of four walls and the ceiling in our kitchen are just plasterboard. Taped, joint compound and then painted. Doesn’t look any different to a skimmed wall to me and was quite easy, easier than skimming anyway.

So dusty sanding the joints down though, at least it is when I do it!
 
OSB, is cheap and a different look, might work better in a damp place rather than plasterboard.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
One of the previous houses I lived in was just plasterboard which was taped and filled over and painted. Cheap, easy and quick. A pro could do a whole room and have it ready to paint in under 3 days, that would t be 3 full days either, you have to wait 24 hours for the Easy Fill to dry and you need to do 2 layers.

Plasterboard is probably the cheapest material you can use which is why it’s so prevalent these days. That said if you are doing a basement there are lots of considerations you need to think about to keep it both warm and prevent damp.
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You can do an entire house in that time. A mate of my brothers does it for a job, and they just bring in huge boards, fire in a few screws and all boards and ceilings can be done in a day. A little prep after that to make it ready for painting, but the transformation from brickwork/stud partitions to having plasterboard all over is extremely quick.

And as you've said, it's extremely cheap. I know he's saving up to buy a place as a "dooer-upper", and has said rather than faffing around trying to take off wallpaper, or spend time filling/sanding holes in the plaster, he's just going to spend a day ripping it all out back to brick, and then another day putting plasterboards in. 2 days to have smooth surfaces in every room.
 
sovietspybob said:
I believe most other countries just tape and joint compound their plasterboard, we're the odd ones out for skimming all our walls.
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Construction in the UK is still quite conservative and slow to change... the old “we’ve always done it that way”.

The move from wet plaster to dry line (and skim :D) was quite a shift, even despite the huge benefit of there being a lot less water to dry out prior to decorating.
 
Interesting. All the ceiling in my old house are crap, so i was going to get battens put on the existing ceiling and whack some boards and plaster. But if i can just tape,prep and paint, that will save a whole lot of pain.
 
You probably don’t even need to batten, just screw the plasterboard directly to the joists through the existing ceiling. Be careful of cables and pipes either way.
 
the benefit of plaster over tape and joint I guess is far less dust/mess.
Although most plasterers I've seen don't take care and usually splash plaster all over the place anyway.
 
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