Make a smooth transition from plaster to drywall.
Adding an addition onto a house or remodeling a room creates the need to join plaster walls with drywall in many older homes. Builders applied plaster over thin wood strips that attach to the wall studs to form plaster walls. Manufacturers cover a gypsum core with a thick paper to form drywall. Plaster walls come as smooth, light texture or highly textured. Drywall is a smooth wall. Joining a textured wall with a smooth wall presents a challenge when trying to match the wall. Installing drywall adjacent to a smooth plaster wall is a straightforward project.
Instructions
1. Fit the new drywall up tightly to the existing plaster wall and nail it in place with a hammer. Leave as small a gap as possible between the existing plaster wall and the new material. Continue to nail drywall into the wall studs until drywall covers the bare wall studs.
2. Dip a joint knife into drywall joint compound, known as drywall mud, and scoop up half a blade width of the mud. Begin at the top of the wall, near the ceiling. Place the joint knife at a 45-degree angle to the wall with the edge of the knife pointing up and drag the knife down the wall to fill in the gap between the drywall and plaster. Reload the joint knife with drywall mud as necessary to continue covering the seam. A joint knife is a wide-bladed tool and spans the gap plus an area on both sides of the gap.
3. Line up the end of fiberglass-mesh, self-sticking wall tape to the top of the wall. Position the tape so it straddles the gap with excess tape distributed equally on both sides of the gap. Pull the tape down the wall to the floor. Press the tape smoothly into the drywall mud with a putty knife. Cut the wall tape with a razor knife at the point at which the tape touches the floor. Let the surface dry for one to two hours.
4. Scoop up drywall mud on the joint knife and spread a thin layer of drywall mud from the ceiling to the floor over the wall tape. Feather the edges of the mud to make the mud thinner and thinner as it moves away from the wall tape. Let the drywall mud dry for one to two hours.
5. Spread a third layer of drywall mud, using the same method as for the second layer. Let the drywall mud dry for one to two hours.
6. Insert 100-grit sandpaper onto a sanding block. Sand down the surface of the drywall mud to make it smooth and flow into the smooth plaster wall. If the wall is textured plaster, add water to the drywall mud to make it the consistency of a milkshake. Dip a paintbrush into the watered-down drywall mud and flick the mixture at the wall to create texture. If the texture is circular, dip a sponge into the mixture, place the sponge against the wall and make circles.
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