I've starte remodeling my den and took down the wonderful 1970's foam beams from the ceiling. Unfortunately they were attached with construction adheasive. The bond of the adheasive to the skim coat of plaster on the ceiling is stronger than the skim coats adhesion to the plaster, so it's peeling off the skim coat.
Any suggestions on what to do? Or should I just plan on patching the skim coat?
The room is only about 15x15, so maybe dropping the whole ceilding and drywalling it is an option. I will need to cut some cans in for lighting and move the ceiling fan.
Working on my plaster walls, I've found that unless you have a glass smooth skim coat of plaster, it is easy to repair the skim coat with more plaster. Getting the perfectly smooth finish in plaster is time consuming, but can be done.
I had a similar problem when I took down some shelves that were glued to the wall (grrrr). Took off long irregular strips of plaster topcoat. I just got a bucket of that premix drywall mud and a couple of drywall knives, I think 6-inch and 10-inch, and filled/skim-coated that gouges. Then sanded & painted. It takes a little practice but after the first couple you will have it down. Little harder on the ceiling than on a wall, but not too bad. Use a mister to moisten the gouged plaster a little, otherwise sometimes the mud just falls out taking a layer of powdery plaster with it. Any drywall finishing book or tape will show how to do it. Drywall knives are just big, flexy putty knives. The tools and materials are cheap. You have to sand it smooth, too, which is messy but not too hard to master either. If you are not interested in acquiring these new skills, you could have a drywaller do the patching for not a whole lot of $$. I would recommend keeping your plaster if you can, rather than replacing it with drywall -- first of all, tearing out the plaster is a really big job; secondly, the plaster is much more soundproof than the drywall would be. Another option is to drywall OVER the plaster; I haven't tried that so I don't know the pitfalls. -- H
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