Stucco, Venetian plaster interior walls. Removal? Paint over?

[Frank Szymanski]

Hello all!

Looking at a SFH that has a pretty ugly kitchen to me. Looks like the owner at some point tried to either venetian plaster or stucco of some sort their interior walls to the kitchen and bathroom. See images.

Anybody have experience with handling this? I haven't attempted to repair any of this yet. Some options include:

- Attempt to rip off of wall/sand (doubt this will be practical)

- Paint over white with another color to make it more appealing?

- Cover with thin dry wall?

Any advice would be great thanks!

[Bob H.]

Yikes. Maybe chisel off the highest spots and put a coat of drywall compound over the whole thing? At least that would be thinner than the thin drywall, which would require taping and floating the seams anyway. You don't want to come out too far against the window moulding. If you have baseboard, it's probably best to remove and reinstall it.

[Jim Adrian]

@Frank Szymanski

You have options here... Skim coat the walls with drywall mud to get it smooth or smoother.  If its in just a small area then try to knock down the high points and skim coat it to match the rest of the house.  You can skim coat and then spray texture the area to blend in. You may need to do a combination of things to get the appearance to blend in.  

[Frank Szymanski]

Originally posted by @Jim Adrian:

@Frank Szymanski

You have options here... Skim coat the walls with drywall mud to get it smooth or smoother.  If its in just a small area then try to knock down the high points and skim coat it to match the rest of the house.  You can skim coat and then spray texture the area to blend in. You may need to do a combination of things to get the appearance to blend in.  

 It's basically the kitchen and the master bathroom. It'll be somewhere I am going to live initially and then rent out so I don't want to pour a ton of money. I just know the kitchen is a focal point for renters.

There are cracks evident though which I was I am hesitant on skim coating.

[Max T.]

If it is laid on top of sheetrock, just remove it all and start fresh.

[Frank Szymanski]

Originally posted by @Max T.:

If it is laid on top of sheetrock, just remove it all and start fresh.

 Remove all the dry wall itself?

[Jim Adrian]

@Frank Szymanski

I would bet the cracks are from applying the drywall mud too thick. This is common and I have done this myself when I got impatient.  You could pick at the drywall mud with a putty knife and it will come off and then start over.  The cracks are from top coat drying too fast before the base of the material could dry. These are simply moisture shrinkage cracks not settlement cracks.   I can see the cracks in the bottom pictures and that mud is over 1/4"  (3/8" ?) thick which is too thick to be placed at one time.  Tap it lightly with a hammer and it will break off and you can start over. 

[Max T.]

@Frank Szymanski

Yes it would be faster and drywall is not that expensive.

[Marian Smith]

@Frank Szymanski use a pole sander with a screen or 80 grit drywall sanding paper to sand as much as possible. Then thin out joint compound and roll it on with a 1/2 nap lambswool roller and use a troel sqeegee off amazon or magic trowel from sherwin williams to smooth it. Dried ridges can be easily scraped with drywall blade. Lots of painters can do this.

[Dutch Langley]

We have run into this alot....cheaper just to demo and redo the drywall.