DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

Hi everyone.

Will be trying out some skimming soon on my kitchen walls and possibly ceiling IF everything goes ok...
The walls i will be doing are plasterboard sheets on wooden stud partitions.
i had to spend alot of time scraping of the old wallpaper (woodchip :evil: ) which has left me with painted plasterboard, a bit flaky in places but will remove all flakes etc.
also had to fill some fairly dodgy old holes in the plasterboard.

from what i have been reading on this site i seem to need to do the following:
PVC the walls, plaster 2 x 2mm layers of multi finish, then diluted matt emulsion to seal before i put on the finishing coat of paint..

a few questions i have are:

How many coats of PVC, and what mixtures to use on each coat?
The PVC i got is in a 5ltr plastic tub, it says dilute 5:1 on it, but is that enough?

I only want to skim about 5 meter square at a time as its my first attempt , the plaster i have is thistle multi finish in 25kg bags.
roughly how much water should i use for half a bag, i wouldnt mind wasting it too much as its cheap (trial and error) but i live 60 miles from nearest big diy shops, so can be a pain.?

also theres a new bit of wall that has a little bit of taping and jointing done with jointing plaster, can i just pva over that as i would be doing with the old painted areas?

any other tips are most welcome.

Thanks

Hi L0giX, I think you have the gist of it, by what you have mentioned. Difficult to say about water content as first coat usually a little stiffer than second coat. It's a suck it and see thing when I do it, do it by look and touch. So be guessing! it wants to be creamy paste mix a bit like yogurt may be a touch thicker.
If you have not yet looked on the projects pages under plasterering (general) it will give you good tips. I don't PVA plasterboard but as you say it's got paint on it would be wise to do so, 5:1 okay.
Good Luck all about practise and mixing right.
KB