Refinishing Plaster and Lath Walls

In many old homes the walls are built out of plaster and lath. They are then covered with beautiful wall paper. But over time, the wall paper does not age well, it begins to crack and peel. The walls begin to look old and worn out.

One of the many beautiful but worn out wall papers in the Inn
Some of them looked hand printed.

So in pursuit of smooth and pretty walls, the prep work is quite intensive. Here is a bit of the process.

It took teams of us, working furiously with streamers and scrapers
to get the walls stripped.

The peeling begins before the walls can be refinished and all of the old wall paper must be removed. Which can be a daunting task, or as easy as tearing a piece of paper depending on the wall paper. Many of the rooms we stripped had layers of wallpaper that had then been painted over. Doubly hard.

Here is our master skim coater. It does take a steady even hand.

When the wall is finally free of paper you are left with a very rough plaster surface so the mudding or skim coating begins. The technique we used was to roll out the mud onto the walls, and then come back over it with a blade to smooth it out. This may not be the preferred technique of professionals but it worked for us.


The pink (post it's) are places that have to be done twice, because of discoloration or were missed and aren't smooth enough. Once the walls are newly finished they are then sanded smooth. When the sanding is completed (which can take several times over) the primer goes on, and then the paint. Finally and eventually we have beautiful smooth walls. It is ALOT of work but worth the effort!