Time to master the lore of the gypsum! Was not looking forward to this bit given the reputation that plastering has for being "not as easy as it looks". Especially as I never used to think it looked that easy either!

So we have a nice blank canvas to start work on, yards and yards of plasterboard...

So Raw Materials:

Thistle Multifinish Plaster
Water

Tools:

Bucket, trowel, Hawk, corner trowels, large whisk like thing to go on the end of the drill.

Research: find all the descriptions you can of "how to skim plaster" and read them!

Micky Mouse guide...

Mixing: stick a few litres of water in the bottom of the bucket. Using the drill on a slow speed start whisking as you trowel in the plaster. Keep going until you get to something a bit like moderately stiff whipped cream! If you put a blob on your trowel it should just about stay put when you turn it upright.

Setup a "spot board" i.e. an offcut of plasterboard on the workmate (damp it down a bit so it does not absorb too much water from the wet plaster), and tip the bucket onto it. If you have the mix about right it will just about avoid running off the board. Now go and wash out the bucket so it is spotless! Otherwise next time you see it you will find it has set!

Scoop some plaster off the spot board onto the hawk with the trowel and practice scooping smaller amounts off the hawk back onto the trowel. Learning to tip the hawk toward the trowel in the same action helps!

First job, set about the ceiling, since any you splodge on the walls you can cover later ;-)

The trick here is to get it on, and not worry about getting it flat! Once it is up, smooth it out a bit and go away and start plastering a wall. Come back in 20 mins, after which time the plaster should have started to go off. You can now trowel it smoother. Wait some more, come back and repeat. You may need to splash some water on it now to get marks out of the finish. Keep fiddling about like this until it looks flat enough!

Now with a dollop of the stuff on the trowel, apply the edge of it to the bottom of the wall and wipe it up the wall. Hopefully it will stick. Keep slapping it on the walls until its all gone. Wait and repeat the polishing process as described above.

You will probably see pros using a large brush to splash on the water for final polishing. Personally I found a quick puff with a pump up garden sprayer was easier. These also come in very handy if you need to plaster over dry backing plaster or brickwork, since in these cases you need to give the wall a good soaking before you try to plaster it, otherwise the water will be sucked out of the plaster too quickly and make it unworkable.

Coo eee, look its all gone pink. Not too bad for a first time... (well first time if you ignore the bathroom ceiling that is).

Observations, this job is soooo much faster if you have someone else there to mix for you. That way you can keep working. Otherwise you keep having big non productive gaps waiting for the stuff to dry enough to polish, that are not enough time to do and apply the next mix. Hence this room took several days working on my own, when with help it could have been done in a few hours.

The frustrating thing is that by the time the whole job is finished you are starting to get quite good at it.. shame you did not start that way!

A word on trowels

Metal plastering trowels all look much the same. However the first rule is that you don't want to go plastering with a brand new one! Since it will be too flat, and have sharp edges and corners that will leave makes all over your finished plaster. What you need is a trowel that has been "broken in". This means the sharp corners are gone, and it will have acquired a slight curve over the short axis. The steel will also have acquired a bit more "spring" than it had when new and off the shelf.

There are a few ways to get a nice broken in trowel: one is to lend it to someone doing some rendering for a week. The more likely one is to go to work on it with a brick! Rub all the edges and corners against it to smooth them off. The shape you will only get from use, unless you buy a really nice Mashaltown "permashape" trowel. These really are nice and well worth the money in my opinion (about £35). They have a lovely smooth thin and light stainless steel blade, no sharp edges and are useable from new. Make sure you clean it well after use. If you have bought a cheap steel one it will rust and this can make it "drag" when used. A small cup brush on an angle grinder will see to the rust however.