Resurfacing Cellar Walls

A cellar by definition is a room under the ground level of a house. Underground rooms tend to be cool and damp, perfect for storage of fruits and vegetables or wines, but hard on walls. Old homes built on rock foundations have cellar walls that tend to shed any plaster coatings after decades of condensation on the surface of the rocks. Resurfacing the walls involves creating a sound surface and then layering a fresh coating of concrete over the walls.

Wire brush
Drop cloth
Leveling mortar
Bucket
Trowel
Paint roller
Bonding resin
Sanding block
Dust mask
Goggles

Instructions

- 1
  Clean off any crumbling plaster from the surface of the wall using a wire brush. Place a drop cloth at the base of the wall to catch the majority of the gritty old plaster. You don’t have to remove areas where the plaster might still be hard and well attached to the rocks.
- 2
  Mix a batch of leveling mortar in a bucket, following the manufacturer’s directions. Mix well with a trowel to remove any dry lumps in the mixture.
- 3
  Apply a liberal coating of bonding resin designed to create a skin over the old surface using a paint roller. Work on one 3-foot square area at a time. Allow the resin to become tacky, but not dry.
- 4
  Coat the tacky resin with the leveling mortar. Move to the next 3-foot area and repeat the layer of resin and then plaster.
- 5
  Dry the first coat of mortar for six hours before applying a second coat. Roughly sand the surface of the wall using a sand block to smooth out any rough areas of mortar.
- 6
  Use a wide trowel to cover the wall with another thin layer of mortar, smoothing out the surface as much as possible. Dry for at least six hours and sand the surface.
- 7
  Add more thin layers of the mortar until you reach the desired smoothness, or finish the surface by adding texture at the end.

How to Insulate an Already Drywalled Wall

Reinforcing a Plaster Wall

Wall Repairs