I want to paper my freshly plastered walls, and paint the ceiling.  Papering to match the other room.

I was going to paint the walls with white emulsion, the first couple coats 50/50 with water.

Someone then told me to unibond instead?  Some people seem to love unibond!

What is best to do?

No, The adjoining room has a wall paper, so we are matching to that.

No! Don't unibond the walls Lec, If you are going to finish in a patterned wallpaper just size the walls with a pissed out coat of wallpaper paste, let dry and stick the paper on.
If you are going to put lining paper on and paint it, don't bother, just paint the new plaster.

Unibond and similar has no place in decorating, plastering yes, not decorating.

I wasn't sure if a white wall would be better with wall paper?  Whats it like removing paper from just a plastered wall?

Thanks.

The paper is to match the lounge I did last year.  It is Superfresco Textured.  It is lovely to hang.  Very forgiving and easy to keep joins tight.

In fact, you cant see the joins at all.  Most folk come in and think it is a paint finish.  Thats good, as papering is kind of out!

The lounge walls where papered, and we stripped that, and it was a white-ish cream underneath.  We papered ontop of that.

I think I will give the walls a couple coats of watered down white emulsion and then paper ot top.

I was just about to start a new thread to ask a couple of questions about covering fresh plaster, but I see one is under way. However, it doesn't quite answer what I need to know.

I'm shortly looking at buying a house that needs loads doing to it including re-plastering everywhere. I don't want to paper everywhere as I like the look and feel of painted walls. A friend has just had some rooms skimmed in his house and I noticed that the plasterer didn't finish the walls to what I know as a "polished finish" that has a beautiful silky feel to it. (I don't know what the correct term is for this smooth, satiny type of finish). The walls were sanded down slightly once dried, before the decorator started.

If you're painting directly onto plaster, is this the usual finish that is given, or is it more likely, the decorator sanding out little blemishes left by the plasterer?

What is the best method for painting directly over fresh (but thoroughly dried) plaster? I've tried before and found that emulsion rollers on, but the water in the paint leaches into the plaster almost instantly, then the next time you roller over it seconds later, it flakes off onto the roller. Was I using the wrong paint? Should I have done other prep first?

Thanks.

Fresh plaster should have a 50/50 coat of emulsion/water before going for the next coats.  Possibly even the second coat could do with being watered down.

If you don't do this you end up with a dry skin of paint which flakes and peels very easily.

I normally use the Wickes Contract paint, cheap as chips and covers really well. First coat is usually thinned with water as suggested above.
As for HVLP spraying, I have not tried it but I really want to. Have a look on You Tube for vids of people spraying, looks good.

I used this stuff when I did my kitchen -

http://www.dulux.co.uk/products/info/plaster_sealer.jsp

No real idea as to how good it was. I had the 1st metre from the floor rendered. The render mix had some Cementone No2 & PVA added before application. Above 1 mtre to the ceiling I just dabbed & boarded.

Everything was then given a plaster skim and allowed to dry out.

Following this, the room was painted with this plaster sealer stuff and allowed to dry out further, then emulsioned throughout.

What I can tell you is that the plaster skim over the rendering began to crack off and flake away within a month or two of completion.
So when I got the plaster back to do the bathroom I asked him to reskim the damaged areas. These have since cracked and flaked again.

No idea what caused it. Initially, I wondered if the underlying render hadn't completely dried out, and that it had shrunk away from the plaster skim.

Other than this, I could only suspect that some chemical reaction had taken place between the waterproofer, the plaster sealer or the PVA.