Living with bare plaster walls - and why it didn’t work for us
If you’re having your walls skimmed or plastered and are considering leaving them unpainted because you love the bare plaster look - this blog post is for you.
As a fan of muted peachy pinks, I have also always loved the bare plaster look, especially as it provides so much texture, similar to many of the lime wash paint effects that are so popular at the moment. Having had a disaster with natural lime wash paint already, I’ve never been tempted to try that again, however bare plaster felt like an achievable way to get a similar effect with minimal effort.
Our living room is a big room, previously painted in brilliant white and desperately in need of some warming up. When we had it skimmed, the plasterers did a good job, however, everything all turned out far more stressful than it should have been. We took the kids camping (so they could proceed with the work) and the workmen managed to snap our house key in the lock - locking themselves out whilst we were away.
We also had issues with the finish, but this time it was my fault as I should have told them we were hoping to leave the walls bare. As it was, I did not, so when the natural cracks appeared (as they often do with freshly plastered walls) they scraped all the cracks out fully and refilled them with filler. I believe this is the correct method for fixing hairline cracks, so it’s absolutely through no fault of their own, but obviously when I came home to find lots of filler-filled crack lines throughout the walls, I was somewhat devastated as it certainly didn’t look like how I imagined it.
Determined to persist with the vision I had for this room, I mixed multiple sample pots together to create a colour as close to plaster as I could and hand painted the cracks to help them blend in. I imagine if you told your plasterer you wanted to keep the walls bare, they would probably just have to leave the hairline cracks - but that is definitely a question for your tradesman or woman.
The painted cracks looked ok from afar, and I am sure most people wouldn’t notice them, however I found they annoyed me. In some lights or angles they weren’t visible but if you were looking straight on you could see them pretty clearly.
However after returning from a very rough camping trip (don’t camp with three very young children!) and with the house in chaos, 10+ loads of laundry to do etc, we just decided to put the furniture back in and roll with the initial plan.
Finished bare plaster walls in the living room corner with ceiling painted in ‘Driftwood’ by Fenwick & Tilbrook.
Fireplace painted in colour match of ‘Setting Plaster’ by Farrow and Ball. Armchair, vintage; Rug, Ruggable; Wall light, Pooky; Television, Samsung Frame.
One of the painted crack repairs can be seen on this wall going from the pipes to above the wall light. Artwork, Wonder and Rah; Wall light, Pooky; Ikea Duktig play kitchen hack; Picnic basket and basket luggy, Olli Ella.
We painted the ceiling in a warm off-white called ‘Driftwood’ by Fenwick and Tilbrook which really lifted the space and helped the plaster colour to really sing. I loved some corners where the texture looked great and others tended to look on the more messy side, depending on the finish of the plaster and the random nature of the texture.
However after two years of living with it like this, I was desperate for the space to feel more finished. I still loved the warm colour so I chose Setting Plaster (which the fireplace was already painted in) and we rushed to get that on the walls before laying new oak flooring throughout. Other changes since have included painting the uPVC windows green and adding some new curtains. The room has evolved into one of my favourites in our home now and it just goes to show that sometimes what you see in other peoples homes, may not work in your space - and that is totally fine!
Bare plaster walls: FAQ
Should I seal it?
Due to circumstance we didn’t seal it, deciding to live with it as is and see how we go. I was very worried about losing the colour and matt look of the bare plaster and with the whole vision slightly not going as planned anyway, didn’t want to seal it with something that would then mean painting the walls in the future would be hard work.
I also couldn’t find a conclusive answer to how best to seal the walls to prevent dust. A coat of PVA will leave a slight sheen to the finish and also be a complete nightmare to remove if you ever do wish to paint the walls, as would decorators varnish or plaster sealer. It felt like the safest option was to go without a sealer however that also comes with its downsides.
Are bare plaster walls dusty?
Unsealed plaster is porous and therefore rather dusty. Whilst we never saw evidence to this or felt like the room was particularly dusty, if you rubbed against the walls, you would often get a layer of dust on your clothing.
This obviously isn’t a particularly common occurrence, but definitely more noticeable with kids around playing hide and seek or other such games where they’re pressed up against the wall. We kept the walls as bare plaster for about two years though and I did notice the dust issue became less of a problem over time.
Can I clean bare plaster walls?
This was one of the more surprising advantages to me as despite being a porous substance the walls felt relatively easy to clean. I tended to just use a baby wipe or damp cloth and managed to get all the marks off. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it would work well in a kitchen or bathroom, but even in our busy living room with lots of kids around, the plaster held up well. Obviusly due to the nature of the plaster, if you’re scrubbing it for a while, you will find that you’re actually taking a layer of plaster off but with the walls beautifully textured anyway, it never left a mark that was obvious.
We also had a few shower leaks from the bathroom above and whilst the plaster got very wet, once dry, it wasn’t noticeable there had been any damage which I know would have been different it the walls had been painted.
Do I paint the ceiling with bare plaster walls?
This is personal preference, but I think you can be at risk of the space feeling ‘unfinished’ if the ceiling is bare plaster too. We painted our ceiling a warm off-white with a hint of pink (brilliant white felt too stark) and still visitors would ask me when the room was going to get decorated despite us having put up pictures on the walls and the rest of the space being fully furnished. I have see some instances in more modern homes where they’ve kept the ceiling bare plaster but it tends to only work in my opinion if everything else in the room is super slick and minimal.
Which leads me on to the main reason our unpainted bare plaster walls had to go.
Doesn’t it just look unfinished?
In our 400 year old thatched cottage, where everything is already pretty rustic and rough and ready - the bare plaster walls really did start to look ‘unfinished’. We’ve been living in a renovation for three years, with so many details unfinished from flooring to light switches, skirting boards to window treatments and in the end, the bare plaster walls just looked like one more thing sat on the to-do list. Perhaps if we had waited to finish the floor and skirting, we may have found that we liked the bare plaster however by this point I was so over the renovation and the house feeling messy and unfinished that I just really wanted to smarten everything up.
How about using the paint ‘Setting Plaster’ by Farrow and Ball?
This is a great option if you love the colour of dried plaster however it will be a dead matt finish with no texture - so a very different look overall to bare plaster. Other great plaster paint colours are Edward Bulmer ‘Jonquil’ and Little Greene ‘Castell Pink’. If you’re after the texture you can always try Bauwerk Limewash paint in ‘Serene’ or ‘Palomino’ which look stunning, but do your research first and check out this blog post where it went wrong for me!
As I has already painted the fireplace in a Setting Plaster colour match first time round (to match in with the actual dried plaster), I decided to pop it on the walls too when it came to choosing a colour. I love how it’s the perfect warm neutral and looks great against the newly painted green uPVC windows and the green from the garden
Handmade lampshade using Liberty ‘Thorpe House’ Linen; Cushion, Path Homeware; Armchair, Facebook Marketplace; Mug, Habitat; Standard lamp, Facebook Marketplace.
Sofa and footstool, Snug Sofa; Artwork, Ls Lowry ‘Old Church and Steps’ King & McGaw; Cushion, Path Homeware.