I just filled in a window in the 1920’s original part of the house. (Went into garage)
The wall looked OK before but now having taken pains to plaster over with 2020’s new multifinish (I had top pay £33 a bag on the black market) the original wall looks rubbish. Pitted and little voids etc.

I already did the skim and a mist coat then a undercoat and the original wall looks like a complete pitted mess now. It wasn’t straight to begin with…but I only had a single bag and didn’t really want to do the entire wall.

Is there any easy way to distress the new part so it looks “authentic”?

If decorating anyway I’d just skim it with promix lite and make it all look good again.

If decorating anyway I’d just skim it with promix lite and make it all look good again.

Will that need a lot of prep?
Presumably this will make the old wall look like new… ?

I’d taken off the skim plaster for 4-5″ around the window so I could overlap onto the old stuff but now it just highlights how poor the old stuff is.

A slight complication is the gap at the bottom as the old room had 8″ 1920’s horrible skirting so I’ve also been round and extended this down to 2″ from the base round all 4 walls and filled the massive holes created getting rusted in nails out the so I can fit some modern skirting. This has the same problem… and I don’t fancy doing all 4 walls…

I guess in retrospect I should have used a different skim coat…

YOu took original skirting off to put modern stuff in?

I spent hours making replica skirtings and scavenged for matching stuff. I loathe modern stuff in old buildings

YOu took original skirting off to put modern stuff in?

I spent hours making replica skirtings and scavenged for matching stuff. I loathe modern stuff in old buildings

Yeah, its a 1920’s bungalow with 1990’s extension/upstairs… so any hope at authenticity is well gone. I used to have a 1860’s terraced cottage where everything was authentic … most of the kitchen wall was only held together with PVA but he ho….

fair enough

Will that need a lot of prep?
Presumably this will make the old wall look like new… ?

Assuming you have the ability to make it so….yes.

Short of paying a plasterer there isn’t an easier way to get as good a finish as with the promix

I did nearly all the walls in my house as I loath wallpaper and the walls were covered in it when we arrived.

in my 1870s flat ( which has pretty good plaster) I spent hours with filler to get smooth walls. fill and sand, fill and sand ad infinitum

IIRC 3 kilos of filler in the hall much of which was sanded back off. Lovely smooth walls now tho

At that age is there a chance the original is lime plaster, making the difference between materials more obvious?

Assuming you have the ability to make it so….yes.

I can certainly make them look like new (or good enough for me) using multi-finish, I’m just loathe to replaster the whole 4 walls… and if I was going to do that I’d probably want to strip them back all the way to the brick and make them straight.

When I learned to plaster (back in the 70’s) I don’t remember the plaster being this easy to get perfectly smooth…(though back then an 18″ trowel was half my size) so I think a of of this is just the better quality plaster. I wasn’t upset with the rough finish to start with (the non straight walls bugged me more) but it now just looks rough next to modern plaster so I was thinking there might be an easy way to just texturise the part I did.

At that age is there a chance the original is lime plaster, making the difference between materials more obvious?

That had occurred to me…. especially as it seems to have moved with the house without cracking. In the newer extended part of the house the gypsum based plaster is cracked and I’ll have to redo a wall

Sod it I just painted over the lot….
I might get round to just filling some of the bigger gaps and voids with some filler later…but time to put a floor down after that being the initial job weeks ago before I found a leak under the floor that had rotted the joists …