Here is another plaster repair, involving an ice dam. The winter of 2026 in Buffalo NY was brutal in the sense that the snow and ice didn’t melt, and instead, built up over time, leading to water leaks. The mold abatement people, removed approximately 7′ x 7′ section of the wall and a 3′ x 7′ section of the swirl ceiling. This home, built in the 1950’s is a rocklath plaster home, and the homeowner is adamant about keeping both the house original, and the swirl ceiling. So no drywall allowed.
At Carrigan Painting, we specialize in this type of work. But matching that swirl.. is going to be fun. Matching swirl over such a large area, is nearly impossible. You have to get the finish, with in about 1 miliimeter of the existing ceiling, with out the texture – before we texture it, and we have no smoothness around the patch to easily check the height. These repairs are always difficult and I have a couple of ideas we might try to try to get the new swirl to match the old.
Ok so on to the pictures:
We set up a wall of plastic to partition off our work area, from the rest of the house. This isn’t so much to do with dust, but to contain our mess. Also, plaster has a tendency to splatter, a LOT!
I don’t have an 8′ section of open wall space in my barn to store 8′ sheets, so I had to cut them in half to store the material, also it was 20F outside, so thats why the sheets are different sizes LoL. Its not a problem, just doesn’t look as clean, and it’s a little bit more work on site.
The remediation company, also removed all the insulation, so we are installing new insulation as well. We got a late start to this job, as we were finishing up another plaster restoration and painting project in Cheektowaga NY.
Tomorrow we will finish installing the blueboard, and then install the plaster basecoat. That is not drywall, that is Imperial Board, and its specially made to accept plaster. (And we can no longer get it in Buffalo, ugh!) What makes it different from drywall, is it has a waterproof paper on the face, and has a special coating on the face paper which promotes both a mechanical and a chemical bond between the gypsum board, and the plaster. If you attempt to use drywall with out the right steps, the new plaster will soak through the paper of the drywall, and cause a structural failure of the patch.
More to come!
