Painting un-skimmed plasterboard

[Count de Monet]

What do you do about the joints?

[John Williamson]

Make features of them?

Or make grooves, and fill the grooves to hide them. You'll still get cracks showing quite quickly, though.

[S Viemeister]

Tape and spackle.

[<me9]

Use tapered board, tape and fill the joints.

[Tabby]

use a mesh tape, it allows the filler to go through but helps prevent cracking. Did you use square edge or recessed/tapered?

NT

[Roger Mills]

Use self adhesive scrim tape over the joints, then cover the tape with board jointing compound - feathering the edges.

I did a small stud wall this way, and the joints are completely invisible.

Assuming the board is screwed to studding, you also need to use jointing compound over the screw heads.

[Tabby]

only if you're using non-plasterboard screws, and if the OP were he'd be skimming, since they make such a mess of the board.

NT

[Count de Monet]

This ceiling is in my workshop so I don't need it to be skimmed. I just want to paint it white to help with keeping the place bright.

What about Brown Gummed Paper Packing Tape

this will cover the joints and screws, then just paint over.

Opinions?

[BartC]

I put filler in the joints, then lining paper over the whole thing**, then painted over the paper.

(** probably the wrong thing to do, nevertheless that's what I did and it seemed to work out.)

[Tabby]

That's a standard method used in garages etc. The downside is in time it peels - but its very easy to patch if/when it does.

NT

[Man at B&Q]

It will start to peel off as soon as the water in the emulsion soaks in.

MBQ