(and what to expect if you’re going on a plastering course soon!)
Last night, I completed a 15 hour Basic Plastering course at my local college. For anyone who knows me, they will know that this is so off brand for me and almost quite comical, seeing as I’m useless with DIY – you know my talent lies with putting together an outfit or I can do a smokey eye in 5 mins but plastering? Hmmm.
Well then we bought a house that needs a load of plastering doing, and we knew from our old house when we had to have a few ceilings plastered, just how expensive it is and with us one day wanting to do ; a second storey extension, a single storey extension and convert the loft – we felt that being able to plaster, would be a good skill to have and of course would save us some money in the long run.
My husband hates plastering, so I said I’d give it a go. And well here we are 5 weeks later- and guess what, I feel confident enough to plaster the house now, sure it probably won’t be perfect but I’ll give it a good go and I feel I learnt a lot about the technique and I’m sure with time / practice – it’ll get easier.
I was so surprised last night when I posted on Instagram about the course, just how many messages and questions I got about it, so I thought I’d write a post all about the course, how much it cost, what I learnt, etc… and I hope this is helpful!
So first of all :
What course did I do? Basic Plastering
Where? At my local college – Shrewsbury College
How long was it? 5 weeks (Wednesday evening 6-9pm)
How much was it? £170 (course and materials)
So what did we learn?
We learnt : Health and Safety, Mixing, Fixing Plasterboards, Skimming and Plaster Patching. The tutor (Dave) was a retired plasterer with years of experience so he gave us loads of tips and guidance along the way. There’s obviously a lot more you could learn but with only 3 hours a week for 5 weeks, it covered all the basics you need to know around the home and with the basics – you could now watch videos on YouTube and it would make more sense. It’s not something you can just watch online and then do yourself, like you need to learn the hand skills/technique which is what you get with the course.
What do you need?
You don’t need an awful lot and it might vary for each course, but on ours you needed safety shoes (I got these as I felt they were the least tragic I could find) old clothes, a Stanley knife, tape measure, pencil, a drill (we used this for a couple of weeks so you probably won’t need it for week 1) and that was it. I did end up buying my own trowel as the weeks went on but this is something you don’t need to begin with.
What was the course like?
It was good, I didn’t know what to expect but it was all very basic and catered to all skill levels, on our course there were tradespeople like builders and then people like me ; total beginners and it suited us all. I found some bits hard (like the plasterboard / patching the wall) cause I’m just not confident with DIY but there was always a lot of support / help if you needed it (and a few of the other course members were really helpful too!)
I was really worried going into the course, I felt really out of my comfort zone and wondered if there would be any other women on the course, or what would the tutor be like? But I needn’t have worried, there was 10 of us in total, ranging from 20s-50s – women and men and all skill levels.
The tutor was so helpful and supportive, I never once felt unconfident or like I was doing it wrong (even though I am sure that I was probably one of the most novice students he’s ever had!)
I came away feeling 1. really proud of myself for throwing myself out of my comfort zone and doing the course and 2. I feel confident with this new skill to now plaster the house – like I’m not amazing at it but I’m going to give it a good go and hopefully save us some money renovating!!
Was it hard?
Yes and no. Some bits I found challenging but like I said the support on the course was great and there was a lot of guidance, there’s no exam or anything like that so no pressure!
What do you wear?
I wore some jean cargo like trousers that I picked up off Vinted for like £3, an old black t-shirt, and my safety boots. I took a change of trousers each week to get changed into for the drive home as I would get covered (no surprise I was a very messy plasterer!) but I found that each week my clothes would wash absolutely fine so don’t worry too much. People just wore jeans, trackies, like just don’t wear anything you don’t want to potentially get ruined but you don’t need like actual trades clothes as such!
What’s next?
There’s no further plastering course at my local college though I am sure there is at others, I feel like I’ve got enough skill (ish) to do what I need to do around the house so that’s what I wanted to achieve.
Here’s the link to the exact course I took
Would I recommend the course?
Yes absolutely! If I can do it – you can. Push yourself out of your comfort zone, learn a new skill and save some money on those house renovations 😉
If I’ve missed anything or you have any other questions, send me a DM on instagram and I’ll happily chat away to you about it 🙂
You can catch up with my other house related posts here
