How to level ceilings with your own hands

Have you noticed when visiting your friends and acquaintances, what part of their apartment sometimes produces not the most pleasant impression? Strangely enough, but this is not a toilet room, not a hallway or even a balcony ... Most often in a terrible state is the ceiling.

There are many reasons for this: here and strive to flood the neighbors, and unwillingness to contact the dirty and very hard work on its repair. Yes, and contacting repair companies often is simply scary: for repairing the ceiling, they ask for such amounts that the head involuntarily stands on end of hair ... However, the ceiling still have to come back, because its horrendous appearance does not contribute to the creation of coziness in the room. So how to level the ceilings with your own hands?

Over time, the surface of the ceilings deteriorates, cracks and irregularities appear. We have to make repairs. There are two types of alignment: the so-called "dry" and "raw" methods. "Dry" is called leveling with the help of plastic panels, ceiling slabs, sheets of plasterboard and similar materials. By "raw" is meant work with the use of materials and mixtures with water content (putty, primer, etc.). It is the raw method that is most often used by professional builders, since it provides optimal results. Since it is quite difficult to level the ceilings with this method, it is best to study the theory before performing the repair.

When using the "raw" method, you should pay attention to the choice of material. If the defects are small, then the filler may be used for finishing, with a fine-grained structure. In case of large defects in the ceiling: wide cracks, ceiling slabs, deformed or located at different heights, first use the starting plaster or plaster. It should be noted that with extensive defects and complete exfoliation of the old coating it is necessary to completely remove it and apply the construction mixtures anew. Before you level the ceiling with plaster, it will not hurt to walk through the building bases and choose the most profitable offers from the sellers. Trying to save time and material leads to the fact that you have to redo everything.

In addition, one should not try to "cheat" by plugging all surface defects with plaster. Before you level the ceiling for painting (after plastering), you can find a lot of cracks, places with flaking plaster and other unpleasant things. And all because you were once too lazy to properly clean the surface ...

If it is necessary to apply a layer thickness of more than 2-3 centimeters, it is necessary to reinforce the surface. To do this, use a steel reinforcing mesh or serpian. The mounting sickle is laid when sealing the joints of gypsum-fiber or gypsum boards, so that the cracks do not form after drying of the putty. Since it is not easy to smooth the ceilings with reinforcing mesh, it is better to worry about reliable assistants in advance.

After complete drying of the putty, the surface is primed. It is desirable to choose a primer with a deep permeability. We do not recommend the use of cheap ones, since in some cases they contain so much water that the composition begins to crack strongly during drying. For work it is necessary to take spatulas of two kinds: narrow (for a set of material) and wide (for spreading over a large area). That's only with specific dimensions will have to decide on their own.

We hope that you learned how to level the ceilings with your own hands!