subtle plaster finish adds beauty and saves time

As part of my ongoing project to address the narrow hall entrance in our house, I’m doing a subtle plaster finish on the walls. The lovely soft mottled colors and texture adds to the layers of subtle colors and textures throughout the room.

I added a thin patchy layer of drywall compound in it’s natural color, an off greyish white, on the entire wall surface. Most of my wall was fresh drywall, but on the already painted sections the drywall compound needed to be slightly thicker to smooth the orange-peel texture of the paint.

My second coat of plaster (drywall compound) is mixed with approximately 20% latex paint in a soft grey and covers approximately 50-75% of the wall. The coats are of various thickness. For the third pass, I alternate between the two mixtures, adding texture and color where it looks like it is needed.

I lightly sand out the few lines and areas that need texture adjustments and then wipe on several coats of glaze – this glaze has about 10% of iridescent glaze mixed in to create a slight sheen.

The result is very subtle and soft, complementing the mix of natural fabrics in tones of cream and white in the adjacent living room. It is an easy finish to achieve…I especially like to use this when I am patching big portions of drywall – instead of having to create a flat mud surface to paint over I can patch and texture.

Have a beautiful week!

xo

shelley