When repairing an apartment, many people come across such a concept as levkas. What is this, not everyone knows. Because of this, difficulties can arise when decorating walls with your own hands.
Gesso walls - the highest quality finish using special materials. Most often, a chalk or gypsum solution is taken for this. This finishing method is suitable for preparing walls for painting.
Levkas application technology
Plastering walls using this technique can be done independently. All work takes place in several stages:
- The preparatory phase involves cleaning the surface of the walls from the old coating. Cleaning should be deep, so even a layer of plaster must be removed.
- Carefully inspect the surface of the walls. All existing cracks and holes (but only deep ones) must be sealed with putty. At this stage, you need to use a composition based on cement. You can also take alabaster (dry mix based on gypsum), especially if in the future it is planned to levkas. What it is was described at the beginning of the article.
- Places where especially large cracks were observed, in addition to cement plaster, must be glued with fiberglass. Also for this purpose a sickle can be used.
- Only after all possible major defects have been eliminated can the primer be carried out. In no case should you miss this stage. The fact is that the primer has a very important function. Thanks to it, it is possible to achieve maximum bonding of finishing materials to the wall surface, and this minimizes the likelihood that the putty will fall off.
- After the primer imposes a leveling layer of putty. Its thickness should be only 2 mm. This thickness should be enough to result in a perfectly flat surface. If this was not achieved, then another layer can be applied, however, each subsequent layer of putty can be applied only if the previous one is completely dry.
- Primer coat.
- Only now you can apply gesso walls with your own hands, using a composition of chalk or lime. Care must be taken to ensure uniformity of application of the material.
After the gesso (what it is, was described above) is completely dry, you can start painting or gluing wallpaper.
Getting patterned paintings
Levkas (what it is, described in the article) is also used if the walls will be finished with special patterned murals. In this case, the technology is slightly different:
- The entire area should be divided into squares with a side of 30 or 40 cm.
- On each square, apply a template of the selected pattern, which circle.
- Apply gypsum mortar along the lines drawn, while carefully observing that the structure of the pattern has the same structure in each square.
- Leave for two days to dry.
- Remove all irregularities (unfortunately, it will not be possible to avoid them) using a special skin.
Now the wall with the pattern can be painted. In the case of gesso, it is better to give preference to water-based acrylic paint.
Levkas Composition
There are two options for gesso: using chalk or lime. As they are not inferior to each other, however, there are some differences in the preparation of the solution.
You can cook gesso with your own hands. Chalk based mixture:
- 5 l of water;
- 3 kg of sifted chalk;
- 30 g of glue.
Water must be heated to a temperature of about 40-50 degrees. After that, the sifted chalk is poured into the container, brought to its complete dissolution, and only now can glue be introduced into the mixture. Care must be taken to ensure that the composition is homogeneous, without lumps.
Limestone Gesso
For calcareous gesso, it is necessary to prepare:
- 2-3 kg of slaked soda;
- 0.5 kg of dye;
- 50-80 g of table salt;
- 150-200 g of potassium alum ;
- water.
The peculiarity of the composition is that it must be applied only on the moistened surface of the walls.
Putty for gesso
There are special ready-made mixtures based on gypsum, for example, Knauf, Weber Vetonit, Klims, Ivsil. They are used if it is planned to obtain volumetric patterns. Their preparation does not take much time, since it is enough to dilute dry powder with water to a state of viscosity.
After preparing any mixture, it is necessary to check the level of viscosity, since this parameter can affect the quality of the final result. To do this, a small amount of material must be applied to a narrow spatula, which then deploy vertically. In this position, the mixture should slide slowly down, which indicates the readiness of the putty. If it turned out to be too liquid, then you need to add a little powder component, if too thick - water. It is necessary to monitor the level of viscosity every time a batch is carried out.
Tools for gesso
Before making levkas, you need to prepare special tools:
- Pneumatic sprayer, or spray gun, for wall decoration with chalk or lime. You can use a manual analog, but it is worth considering the area of the treated wall surface. When using a pneumatic sprayer, care must be taken in advance about protective equipment, in particular, rubber gloves, goggles and a respirator.
- Macro brush Cheaper spray gun substitute. The main thing in using this tool is the direction of applying the mixture for gesso. It is necessary to apply several layers, the last two should be perpendicular to each other, and the last - directed to the window. This method of application will avoid the appearance of stains from the brush.
- Wide spatula for applying viscous gypsum putty. In this case, certain rules must be observed. The amount of material that is applied to the spatula should not be too large or too small. You can apply the mixture from any convenient place, but, as a rule, it is better to do it from the corner. The movements should be arc, while the layer of the mixture is thin. Each adjacent layer should overlap with the previous one.
You also need to prepare a drill with a special nozzle to easily and easily prepare the composition of the desired consistency.
Levkas is a decoration method that can be done not only on the walls, but also on the ceiling, which will allow you to design a room in a single style.