DIY clay ceiling repair

In detail: do-it-yourself repair of clay ceilings from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

We bought an adobe house 15 years ago. The outside was plastered, but the structure cracks with small cracks. The ceiling is cracked. How to repair a ceiling? Can gypsum plaster be used? Or do you still need a cement mortar? Solution proportions? I NEED DETAILED ADVICE. I hope for an answer.

Elena, Nevinnomyssk.

Hello Elena from Nevinnomyssk!

Give advice, and for some reason it will not be performed properly. We'll have to answer morally.

I can only say what I know and nothing more. Many of the secrets of the construction of adobe houses have sunk into oblivion along with their builders.

Currently, adobe construction is not widespread. It is practiced in some southern regions and in Central Russia, but here it is more exotic. The prejudice against the material affects, because in the old days trivial dung was added to adobe, or, more simply, manure. And who is pleased to know that he will live in dung?

Times have changed, almost no manure is added to adobe, but prejudices remain.

They build from adobe, mostly in the countryside, ordinary people, farmers, where they still exist. Because there is a lot of clay and straw here, and other materials are needed to a minimum.

If the house is made of adobe, then its ceiling is also made of it. That is, a completely homogeneous material. This is me at the expense of not using gypsum plaster and cement mortar.

First, about adobe plaster. Its quality depends on the constituent components, which are used as clay, sand, organic fillers (straw, wood, chaff, etc.), water.

Video (click to play).

Clay should be fine-grained in structure, it is easier to mix it.

When they take greasy clay or violate the proportion of the components, the result is such a "parsley" that you have when all the plaster is covered with small cracks. And with skinny clay, it will crumble altogether.

Clay is harvested in summer. They are brought from quarries, dumped into rolls (otherwise, beds) up to a meter high and about two meters wide. It turns out an oblong truncated pyramid. In these rolls, it is advisable to lay it in layers 20 centimeters thick, spilling these layers with water. In winter, such heaps freeze through and, as the old people say, “fluffs up” the clay. And it will be used the next season for work. With this method, the properties of the clay are improved for further work with it.

If there is no desire to drag out the work, then after being brought in from the quarry, the clay is immediately scattered in a small layer, crushed well so that there are no large pieces. Add sand (less often - very fine gravel with sand) and mix it all thoroughly. The drier the clay and sand, the better you mix.

For example, to prepare 1 cubic meter of adobe from clay of medium fat content, take about 3.5 parts of it, one part of sand, about 9 kilograms of organic (otherwise fibrous) fillers. With more oily clay, they take less of it, the same amount of sand, and more fillers.

I do not give the definition of the degree of fat content of the clay, it is long and tedious to tell, it is described in detail on the Internet, if you wish, you will find it.

After that, about 1/4 - 1/5 of the water is poured (from the volume of the mixture of clay and sand), with the help of a shovel they achieve a good soaking of all this. Then add organic fillers, which are used as straw, chaff, chaff, chaff, firewood, etc.

Raw adobe bricks are made from the resulting mass.

And directly for plaster, they often use a solution of lime, clay and organic additives in a ratio of 1/1 / 0.5.

For plastering the walls, small wooden pegs about 7 centimeters long are additionally used. Their square-nesting method (some people call it staggered) after 10-15-20 centimeters are driven into the walls to a depth of about 5 centimeters, leaving a couple of centimeters under the plaster. It is preferable to hammer the pegs into the masonry joints between the adobe blocks.

When applying plaster to the ceiling, for better retention, wood shingles were previously used, now they increasingly use various meshes (simple metal, welded, plastic) with small cells.

Leveling the plaster layer - with floats and trowels.

Try, experiment, show more imagination. And everything should work out.

Other questions about adobe houses:

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Clay ceiling decoration is now practically not used and has long become exotic. But, in the houses of the old building, you can still find a clay ceiling and, accordingly, questions arise about its operation and repair. In this material we will try to answer the most frequent questions and consider possible options for repairing such coatings.

During operation, such coatings do not cause any particular problems. The only thing worth remembering constantly is that they really do not like water and its effects. It is necessary to minimize the contact of the clay surface with water. Otherwise, the clay ceilings will be similar to the standard ones, treated with gypsum plaster.

However, no one has done such a design for a long time, which means that your ceiling has been for many years and it can cause many problems associated with this. The main troubles that the owners of such floors may face will be as follows:

Sagging of a section of the ceiling or of the entire plane.
The appearance of spots.
Loose pieces of clay.
Mold and rot.
Bumps, cracks and dents on the surface.

The best, but, at the same time, the most difficult solution to all problems with such ceilings is a complete rework. That is, cleaning the floor from the clay layer to the base and applying a new coating from modern plaster mixes or finishing with other materials. This way will save you from all problems in the future.

The disadvantages of such a solution include a lot of different factors - from the complexity of the work to the time it will take to complete such a repair. It will be necessary not only to remove a layer of old clay, but also to repair the base, which is most often a shingle, and its restoration is a very difficult process.

In addition, a new layer of plaster must be applied to the renewed base. To do this so that you can admire the ceiling later, only a professional master can, who, alas, will take a lot of money for the work. Therefore, this method is only suitable for those who have the time and financial ability to make long and expensive repairs.

The second option is much simpler in terms of execution and will cost significantly less. Local restoration of damaged areas is implied. Various materials are suitable for such repairs - drywall, gypsum or cement plaster, and so on. In this case, the clay ceiling is restored only in the damaged area and the repair takes place in the following order:

The damaged part is cleaned of dirt and loose materials.
The adjacent areas of the coating are checked for strength and, if necessary, falling off fragments are removed.
A shingle or other base on which the clay was held is being restored.
Surfaces are treated with primers and antibacterial compounds.
The damaged area is sealed with a piece of gypsum plasterboard of a suitable shape and size or sealed with a plaster mixture.
The plane is leveled with a putty compound and painted to match the main surface.

However, this method is also not a panacea - after a while, the ceiling will start to cause problems again, since only a small part of it has been repaired, and the main plane is still made of old clay. Therefore, there is another method that combines the advantages of the previous two.

It consists in removing the clay completely, before shingles. After that, its surface is treated with compounds that prevent rotting, as well as the development of mold, and on this, the work with the old coating ends. Installation of a new suspended ceiling structure begins.

The method is less laborious than the first one, but it takes more time than the second one. A kind of compromise. However, this solution has many advantages over other finishes.

The new ceiling will be really new.
There are a lot of options for such designs - from stretch fabric to drywall compositions.
There will be a ceiling space that can be used rationally.
If necessary, you can insulate the ceiling or add a layer of soundproofing.
Such repairs will cost less than restoring the original clay layer.
This design looks much better than the restored ceilings.

Do-it-yourself ceiling repair can be done even by an ignorant person in the construction business, if you get down to business with intelligence and ingenuity :). In fact, such a repair is not difficult to do, which is what this short story about the repair of an old ceiling tells about.

For many years, despite all the repairs in the house, the old ceiling, plastered with clay and whitewashed with chalk, remained in the corridor. This ceiling has already turned 80 years old.

To repair it, they decided to roll off the old clay plaster. When they did this, they saw that the ceiling was made of pine slab (or wicked). These are such practically shapeless boards that did not lie in one plane and protruded one below the other.

The top was stuffed with a cladding made of fairly thick pine sticks. And all these irregularities were hidden by a thick layer of clay. I had to remove all this clay along with the clinging. To protect the boards from rotting, and most importantly from fire, the boards were painted with non-combustible paint, which will last another ten years.

To compensate for the heat-shielding properties of the clay, a 10 mm thick foil insulation was used, which was fastened with staples using a construction stapler to the “bare” boards.

After that, it was necessary to hang drywall. Before starting work with drywall, we carefully read the instructions for its installation.

For the installation of drywall, a metal UD profile and a CD profile were used.

Considering that the base of the ceiling was uneven, in order to align the ceiling around the perimeter, we made the markings for the installation of the UD-profile. For this, a specially made measuring bar was used.

To begin with, we measured the height from the floor with a tape measure, and found the lowest point of the ceiling. We reduced this size by 30 mm, which corresponds to the height of the UD-profile, and cut the bar to the obtained size. Further, taking notes on the walls of the corridor (the number depends on the available length of the ruler), we connected them into a solid line on each wall. Along the marked lines, a UD-profile was installed along the entire perimeter, using a K 6/35 plastic dowel (diameter 6 mm; length 35 mm) to attach it to the walls.

Considering that there is an electric meter and a junction box in the corridor, all the wires were laid in corrugated non-combustible sleeves and attached to the ceiling with plastic brackets. In the center of the ceiling (the intersection of two diagonals), one wire for the lamp was brought out.

We cut 9 pieces of CD-profiles to fit the width of the corridor and installed them with a step of 600 mm along the length of the corridor. The step was marked in the center of the profile. This is necessary so that the drywall sheets are joined on the profiles. After that, the profiles were attached to the ceiling with straight hangers at the rate of three hangers for each profile. To attach direct suspensions to the ceiling base, wood screws were used (they have a stretched cutting pitch) with a diameter of 3.5 mm and a length of 40 mm. To fix the profiles on the suspensions, metal screws with a diameter of 3.5 mm and a length of 25 mm were used.

For filing the ceiling, a moisture-resistant plasterboard with a thickness of 9.5 mm was used. Sheet dimensions: 1.2 meters x 2.5 meters. We cut the sheets to the required dimensions, taking into account that we will be laying with the narrow side (1.2 m) along the CD-profiles. Plasterboard sheets were laid so that there were no intersections of four sheets. A 12 mm hole was drilled in the center of the ceiling to lead the wire to the luminaire. We fixed drywall sheets to metal profiles with self-tapping screws 3.5 mm in diameter and 35 mm long. All seams at the joints of the drywall were glued with reinforcing tape.

The tape was fastened using a starting putty. After the putty had dried (10 hours), it was cleaned with a mesh float. Then putty was made with starting putty on the entire surface of the ceiling. After the starting putty had dried, the entire surface was cleaned with a mesh trowel. After stripping, a finishing putty was applied. After 10 hours, they were painted with acrylic paint using a fur roller.

All work was carried out by one performer. The most inconvenient process in the work was the operation of installing and holding drywall sheets during its installation. To facilitate the work, two T-shaped supports were made from the boards, with which the drywall was pressed and held from the floor.

Ecology of consumption. Homestead: As stated, the clay house and the clay stucco have many positives. This is, first of all, environmental friendliness. However, clay has one big drawback - it is not resistant to moisture.

As stated, clay house and clay stucco have many positive aspects. This is, first of all, environmental friendliness. However, clay has one big drawback - it is not resistant to moisture.

Modern technologies make it possible to make a clay house and clay plaster more durable and resistant to adverse factors, primarily moisture.

In the recent past, I plastered the walls of a country house built of white bricks with clay. I also made the floors of the house from clay. I made the spray from clay with the addition of pine needles, and the finishing layer was made from clay-sand mortar.

After drying, the surface of such a plaster is not too strong - when you slide your hand along the wall, a slight shedding of sand occurs. To fix the top layer of clay plaster, made of clay-sand mortar, I processed the walls with fresh lime in two layers. I draw your attention: it is with freshly slaked lime, since it tends to harden after drying.

Thus, a solid protective layer is obtained, which reliably protects the walls from moisture, firmly holds the top layer of clay plaster, and besides, it is not "taken" when you slide your fingers along the wall.

However, this layer is quite thin - only a couple of millimeters. And this layer does not protect the plaster from moisture from the back side, that is, from the side of the wall. So, if the wall is wet for some reason (for example, the roof is leaking), then this layer of lime can simply peel off and crumble. After the walls and plaster have dried, you will have to process the plaster surface with lime again.

Lime can be added to the clay-sandy plaster solution. Then the plaster layer will be much stronger and already initially it will be less susceptible to moisture.

You just need to remember that you need to work with such a solution in rubber gloves and avoid splashing when working on the skin and mucous membranes. Lime tends to corrode the skin and burn mucous membranes.

A clay-sand mortar with the addition of lime has one important feature - such a solution becomes stronger and stronger over the years, and over the decades its strength is not inferior to the strength of silicate brick. Such a solution can no longer be reused.

Here I want to make one important remark. Freshly slaked lime should not be taken literally - just extinguished and immediately used. No. Immediately after slaking, lime heats up strongly and swells strongly, then gradually cools down. At the same time, it continues to swell slowly.

You can use freshly slaked lime no earlier than in a day. Better yet, in two.

If you do not complete the process of slaking lime to the end and start working with it, then the solution to which it is added, when it dries, will burst with lime, which continues to increase in volume.

Today you can do without lime. For example, plaster the wall with a clay-sand mortar (with a layer of no more than 1 cm), and after the plaster has dried, treat the wall with a deep penetration primer.

Such a primer penetrates into clay-sandy plaster to a depth of 1 cm, or even deeper. Clay plaster treated with such a primer becomes quite durable - it no longer crumbles when held over its surface by hand. Even with a trowel for leveling walls and ceilings, such a surface is no longer so easy to process. Therefore, if you want to level the surface of the clay plaster with a float, then it is better to do this before treating this surface with a primer.

If the room in which the walls are plastered with clay has high humidity, then after processing the clay plaster with a deep penetration primer, you can additionally treat the walls with a primer with waterproofing properties.

Such a primer forms a moisture-proof layer on the wall surface and the plaster is no longer afraid of moisture changes in the room. However, such walls no longer "breathe" as it happens with ordinary clay plaster. Here you have to compromise.

The treatment of clay walls with a primer has an advantage over the treatment of the same walls with freshly slaked lime, if the walls are supposed to be covered with wallpaper.

Hello!! Can you please tell me what is the best way to repair a hole in the clay ceiling of a private house? The hole has formed up to the wooden membranes. Thanks a lot in advance!! Waiting for an answer.

It is best to seal with the same solution - clay mixed with straw. If you plug with other materials, then there is a possibility that due to the difference, there may be a misalignment and cracks may appear or this piece will fall out again.

You can seal it up with any plaster putty. If the layer is thick, first with rothypsum, then with any finishing putty.

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The clay solution is thrown in at least two passes. the first with some kind of large filler, such as straw, make a thick, but sticky and mobile mixture, and put it tightly next to one another with bloopers.

When it dries, then the second layer is thrown over by adding some small filler, such as sawdust, to the clay.

Perhaps it disappears from you for the reason that you sculpt the entire layer in one fell swoop.

Throw in the first layer of bloopers and let them dry. Try to get the solution between the shingles.

Hello. After the wall was moved, the following consequences remained. Please tell me how to fix the ceiling correctly and with what, so that after the repair, God forbid, a piece does not fall off.The house is slag, the ceiling is wooden beams lined with wooden planks and clay.
And what else should you do to keep the clay ceiling from cracking?
Thanks in advance.

Mom dear.

This is me about the photo.

Why not remove all the clay from the ceiling? Something that does not inspire confidence. GKL to help you.

For Baikal he wrote:
GKL to help you.

And I would have finished with a clapboard.: Yu

olekk wrote:
what should be done to keep the clay ceiling from cracking?

Get rid of the clay ceiling. 21st century in the yard.
GKL, suspended, tensioned - whatever, just not this.

Hubert wrote:
And I would have finished it with a clapboard.

In Ukraine with a tree, I think, strained. The lining is better in the bath, in the sauna to use.

Well, not the same strained so as not to find it on the ceiling. Another thing is that the lining is a matter of taste. I agree - she has a very bath-and-dacha look.

shingles and plaster clay-cementon mixture, as well as on the rest of the ceiling, IMHO.

Lok wrote:
shingles and plaster with clay-cementon mixture, as on the rest of the ceiling

+1;
gypsum will also work out well, or even better)

olekk wrote:
what should be done to keep the clay ceiling from cracking?

to glue something, such as wallpaper. there is a special repair interlining for this. And then - on the wallpaper, already paint.

Lok wrote:
shingles and plaster clay-cementon mixture, as well as on the rest of the ceiling, IMHO.

Gray wrote:
gypsum will also work out well, or even better)

Once I restored such a wall, the DSP does not fit well, after drying it sticks out and may fall out. The plaster cast held up perfectly.
And ideally, to beat off the clay and peel off the planks, it's about two hours, it takes longer to clean up the garbage and it's very dusty.

Sorry for not answering, there was no way to go online.

zvolki wrote:
Once I restored such a wall, the DSP does not fit well, after drying it sticks out and may fall out. The plaster cast held up perfectly.
And ideally, to beat off the clay and peel off the planks, it's about two hours, it takes longer to clean up the garbage and it's very dusty.

I can beat off the clay and tear off the planks, and then what to do, hook on drywall? Can you describe in more detail how to do this correctly?
And dew drops will not appear on the ceiling (cold above, warm below) if I beat off the clay, because the clay layer also serves as a heater.

Lok wrote:
shingles and plaster clay-cementon mixture, as well as on the rest of the ceiling, IMHO.

Is the shingle a metal mesh? Clay-cement mixture, what is the ratio of clay and cement?

olekk, shingles are not even metal mesh at all, see here
” >

As for the insulation: clay - insulation x. out. What do you have above? Attic? The insulation should be there. Clay in your case is a finishing material, if you destroy it and it seems cold to you, then you need to strengthen the insulation from the side of the attic.

And about the ceiling itself - remove this clay, upholstery the ceiling with something that comes to hand so that garbage does not fall, and order a stretch one. IMHO.

Thanks for the helpful link. Above is my attic. How to insulate an attic? Can spread mineral wool?

Wait a minute with insulation. Is it cold now? Were engaged in the ceiling - bring this question; maybe no insulation is required.

I repeat once again: do not think that this layer of clay gave something in the sense of warming, and that after removing it it will become noticeably colder.

Well, since the question has already been asked: spreading mineral wool will not work. Mineral wool loses its thermal properties when wet, and it must be closed very efficiently from moisture (not only from direct soaking, but also from air moisture). In the attic, this is just an extra hassle. The standard technique is backfilling with expanded clay.
What's in your attic right now? Sand, I guess?

There is no sand, there are beams on top and clay between them.

yes, this is a dugout, not a house, excuse me. Well, before the people did not have anything better for building, only clay. so now make it more correct - to throw out all the wood and tear off everything except the boards, if they are not rotten, if they are rotten - replace, then pull the membrane, nail (fasten with self-tapping screws) drywall, roll something fabric-mesh from above between the rafters so that cotton wool did not wake up, and put 15 cm of cotton wool (although in your climate 10 cm is enough, I think). So I would somehow act like that.
Yes, cotton wool normally lies in cold attics, if the roof is not leaky, although expanded clay is possible, but its thermal conductivity is greater - almost the same clay

Lok wrote:
but he has more thermal conductivity - almost the same clay

Clay - 0.7-0.93 Expanded clay gravel - 0.18 Minvat 0.05-0.07. That is, in terms of thermal properties, expanded clay is exactly in the middle between clay and mineral wool.

Lok wrote:
yes, this is a dugout, not a house, excuse me. Well, before the people did not have anything better for building, only clay. so now make it more correct - to throw out all the wood and tear off everything except the boards, if they are not rotten, if they are rotten - replace, then pull the membrane, nail (fasten with self-tapping screws) drywall, roll something fabric-mesh from above between the rafters so that cotton wool did not wake up, and put 15 cm of cotton wool (although in your climate 10 cm is enough, I think). So I would somehow act like that.
Yes, cotton wool normally lies in cold attics, if the roof is not leaky, although expanded clay is possible, but its thermal conductivity is greater - almost the same clay

If I understand correctly, in my case, as the simplest option, can I plant mineral wool in the attic?

If there is a need to repair the ceiling, this means that its surface is cracked, yellow spots have appeared on it, and possibly streaks from leaks, the old decorative coating is moving away from the base. Be that as it may, first you need to assess its condition, and then make a decision: do cosmetic repairs to the ceiling, or you need a major one.

It is possible that you just wanted to update the interior, and there are no special problems with the ceiling surface. Your task is to refresh the decorative coating.

Usually it is complicated by the fact that there is no way to free the room from furniture and things, especially in a one-room apartment. You have to constantly move the furniture, cover it so as not to get dirty, but nothing can be done about it.

The dirtiest job is stripping the old whitewash from the ceiling. The operation is time consuming and requires careful execution.

To do this, use a roller with a long handle, which is moistened in water and rolled over the ceiling, allowing the whitewash to moisten. After that, it will be easy to clean off with a spatula.

But not all paint can be removed so easily! This cleaning method is well suited for lime, chalk and water-based whitewashing. All other paints are removed with a special cleaner. Each type of paint has its own remover.
Further actions will depend on how exactly you want to finish the surface. All types of painting and gluing works require preliminary priming of the surface, which improves the adhesion of the decorative layer to the base.
The cleaned surface is treated with a universal primer using the same roller. This tool is simply irreplaceable in the repair. It is necessary at all stages of repair: cleaning, priming, painting.
Preparation for painting requires the most thorough surface preparation. Even if you did not touch the old layer of putty during cleaning, and it is relatively even, there may still be small cracks and scratches from the putty knife on it. Therefore, they need to be putty.

If the volume of work is small, you can take a ready-made gypsum putty paste, which is sold in plastic buckets of different packaging. Close up all the grooves with a spatula, let the putty dry, grind it with fine sandpaper and apply another layer of primer.

After that, you can start coloring. Depending on which room the ceiling is in, you can choose from acrylic or latex paint. Modern water-dispersion paints are not only matte, but can also have varying degrees of gloss.

If you think a little about design, then you can implement several options with your own hands. For example, stick a polyurethane rosette with a beautiful relief around the chandelier, which can be in tone with the paint, or make a contrast to it. In this case, a frieze can also be glued along the perimeter.
Anyway, polyurethane stucco molding can even make repairs in the hallway unforgettable, not to mention other rooms. Together with a beautiful chandelier, such a ceiling will look very rich, especially if the volumetric relief on the stucco elements is covered with gilding.
You can decorate the surface in another way. Take a stencil, fix it in the right place with masking tape, and apply a drawing with paint of a different color, which can be in harmony, for example, with the shade of the wall covering, or home textiles.

The picture above is a great example of such a finish, and its price will definitely not go beyond your budget. By the way, to make a stencil pattern in the corners, or along its perimeter, you can take fluorescent paint, and then the contours of the ceiling will stand out in the dark.
You can also decorate the ceiling with paintable wallpaper. In this case, you will also have a beautiful relief on the ceiling.
You can also combine several of the above options. For example, wallpaper can be glued only in the center in the form of a panel, using a frieze to frame it. Wall murals will look even better as a panel.

Such repair of the ceiling in the corridor can visually correct the configuration of the room. The longitudinal or transverse arrangement of a contrasting "carpet" can make an overly spacious room more compact, or vice versa.

If your apartment has not been renovated for a long time, and the plaster is falling off in places, you have been flooded by the neighbors from above, or you just bought an old house that needs to be tidied up. Overhaul of the ceiling is indispensable.

Your actions, in this case, will depend on the specific condition of the ceiling surface. Be that as it may, the first step is to clean the ceiling down to the floor slab. It is quite possible that you will see such a picture as in the photo below.

In addition to such huge gaps, there may be gaping holes in the places where the communication pipes pass through the ceilings. Cement plugs also tend to fall out. And no matter what kind of repair of such a ceiling is planned: plastering, pasting, or filing - holes and cracks need to be repaired.
To do this efficiently, as they say: once and for all - you need to hollow out pieces of the old solution from the cracks, freeing them completely. What if you live on the top floor and the dampness comes from the side of the ever-leaking roof?
After all, a bedroom or living room is not a bathroom where you can install an aluminum slatted ceiling and not worry about anything. In living rooms, the ceiling area is larger, therefore it is more difficult to make repairs, and it hits harder on the budget.
So, the damp ceiling must be insulated from moisture, so treat its surface with penetrating soil. These compositions tend to crystallize in the thickness of concrete, preventing moisture from penetrating into it, and also displace existing ones. Therefore, even damp surfaces can be treated with deeply penetrating primers.

Note: Conventional concrete contact has no waterproofing properties. It is used only on dry surfaces. After the soil is dry, you can start filling the cracks.

For sealing large recesses in the ceiling, it is better to use a cement-based filler. Having filled the seam with it, you can drown expanded clay granules, brick fragments, gravel pebbles in the solution - what is at hand.

Remove excess mortar with a spatula and let it grab, and then once again pass along the seams with a primer.

So that the seams are strong and never crumble, they are glued with a fiberglass reinforcing tape-serpyanka, and primed again. Now the ceiling can be considered reliably insulated and ready for further repairs.

Such manipulations can be spared, perhaps, by repairing the ceiling in the corridor. Rooms up to two meters wide are usually covered with a solid slab. And since there is only one stove, then there are no seams on the ceiling.

Ceiling plastering is a rather laborious process, and if you have never done this before, no instruction or video will help you. You need to learn to plaster on vertical surfaces. But in general terms, this process looks like this.

You will need two types of plaster (or cement, if it is a bathroom or unheated veranda) plaster mixes: starting and finishing.
Starter plaster has a coarser dispersion and is designed to level the surface. After drying and priming this layer, the second layer is performed - with the help of a finishing solution.

The finishing layer of plaster will be denser and smoother, especially after it has been treated with an abrasive mesh.
After sanding the surface, the resulting dust is removed with a vacuum cleaner, the last layer of soil is applied - and the ceiling is ready for decorative finishing in any of the ways that we suggested to you in the first part of our article.

You can level the ceiling not only by plastering, but also by hemming it with sheets of drywall on a wooden crate.Note: There are a lot of materials on our website with detailed instructions on this topic. But no one can do this work alone, since the size of a standard gypsum board is 2500 * 1200 mm, and even the thinnest of them weighs 9 kg. Image - DIY repair of clay ceilings

If you have no one to help, and you do not want to spend money on specialists, we advise you to make the alignment with plasterboard using an adhesive method. In this case, the sheet can be cut into four parts - it will be easier to work. And if you take reinforced drywall, then it is thinner, and weighs not 9kg, but 6kg.
To fix the sheets to the surface, in this case, gypsum glue is used, which, like all modern building mixtures, is sold dry and is diluted with water in small portions, immediately before use.
Its consistency is quite thick, and the glue is applied pointwise, with slaps, both on the sheet and on the ceiling. It grabs quite quickly, and before that, for several minutes, the sheet must be pressed tightly to the ceiling, fixing its position.

In the same way, gypsum tiles are mounted on the ceiling, and maybe this option would be even more preferable. It is lighter in weight and has a beautiful relief. After all, drywall will still need to be putty, and joints should be repaired.
The tile does not need additional finishing, well, except that, if desired, its surface can be painted. Moreover, for finishing with gypsum tiles, it is not necessary to level the base, at least if there are no tangible differences in height.

The ceiling is leveled during the installation of the tiles, the level of which is regulated by the thickness of the gypsum adhesive. The volumetric relief of plaster elements also helps to hide the imperfections of the base ceiling. Such a repair of ceilings is simple and within the power of anyone who performs it independently.

For many years, despite all the repairs in the house, the old ceiling, plastered with clay and whitewashed with chalk, remained in the corridor. This ceiling has already turned 80 years old.

To compensate for the heat-shielding properties of the clay, a 10 mm thick foil insulation was used, which was fastened with staples using a construction stapler to the “bare” boards.

After that, it was necessary to hang drywall. Before starting work with drywall, we carefully read the instructions for its installation.

For the installation of drywall, a metal UD profile and a CD profile were used.