Our old house has had the stone chimneys and fire places plasterboarded over.

The front room has a wood fire surround with a horrible marble effect backing board with a hole in it and a disconnected gas fire sat on the old stone hearth.

The back room has been completely boarded over, and I think I’m going to leave it like that (we don’t use the room other than to store my bikes and the un-used dining table/chairs!)

I want to remove the fire surround and backing board and expose the stone lintel and stones up each side of the fire place. After, I’d like to blend the plaster to meet up with the joints in-between the stones, to make it a feature.

Question is, anyone know the best way of doing this? The plaster board will be between 20 to 50mm above the stones, so the return that I want to sculpt back to the stone will need some support. Fill the gap with builders foam or screw timber to the back of the plasterboard (would need shaping to suit the stone underneath it)?

Also, what plaster to use? In STW fashion, I’d like to install a wood burner eventually, so I’m a bit worried about the moulded plaster just shrinking away from the stone when it gets hot…

Any tips welcome!

(by the way, when the wood burner goes in, I’ll get it and the flue installed by pros)

Pictures would be helpful…

Probably feather it in with render and then thin overskim.

These sort of edges usually shrink back slightly, so edge with flexible caulk when it happens.

Sounds like it ‘could’ be a job for some dri-wall adhesive,this stuff is a very strong filler and will bond to both the plasterboard and stone and can also fill quite large gaps if used correctly,if you have any external angle beads you need to fix to any returns to the stonework you may have you could also bed corner beads in with it.Then maybe finish off with a lighter filler/finish like say Easi-fill .
Slice down any edges of plasterboard that need filling at 45 degrees with a stanley knife to give a good accessible stronger larger surface area then prime dry edges with uni bond first a little while before filling.

I skimmed up to a wooden lintel above a friends fireplace. New board around it then rasped the edge off the board near the lintel at a chamfered angle and skimmed to the wood with multi finish. Has held a year ok so far.