Wall and ceiling finishing in Batumi

Walls: paint, wallpaper and decorative finishes

Most often, we paint walls. A wall for painting is skimmed smooth and primed, then given two coats, and we choose between a roller and a sprayer depending on the area and on whether there is furniture in the apartment. The whole sequence, from masking to the final check, is described on the page about painting walls with a roller or a sprayer.

We hang wallpaper on internal walls in dry rooms: non-woven wallpaper, paintable non-woven lining, and glass fibre lining on walls with hairline cracks. Preparing the wall, matching the pattern and checking the seams are covered in the article on wallpaper hanging. If you are still deciding what to use in a bedroom or hallway, first look at the comparison of paint and wallpaper in a humid climate.

A seamless texture comes from decorative plaster: Venetian, concrete-effect or travertine-effect. Venetian plaster needs a wall as smooth as one for paint, a coarse texture usually only needs level plaster underneath, and where people touch the wall with their hands, the finish is sealed with wax or varnish. Microcement goes on in a thin layer over walls and floors, including in a shower, but only over waterproofing and on a dry base.

MDF slats and panels cover the wall behind the headboard, around the TV and by the entrance, that is, where it gets knocked most often. We fix wall panels with adhesive only to a flat, dry internal wall. On an external or uneven wall we put up a galvanised steel frame, and the room then loses 4–5 cm from each wall that is clad. Mouldings in the wall colour go up before the final coat of paint, and we fill the joints, so the cornices and mouldings read as one surface with the wall.

Which ceiling to choose

In Batumi new builds the ceiling is usually a cast concrete slab. A flat slab is skimmed and painted, and the room doesn't lose a centimetre of height. If the slab has steps left by the formwork and differences of a couple of centimetres, levelling it with filler is slow and expensive, and it is simpler to cover it with a stretch ceiling or plasterboard.

Stretch ceilings go up in a day with almost no dust, and PVC film holds back the water if there is a leak from above. Plasterboard is needed when air conditioning lines, ventilation ducts and curtain recesses run through the ceiling: the frame, joints and access hatches are described on the page about plasterboard structures. With two or more levels, light lines and concealed lighting, it becomes a multi-level ceiling. These are designed before the first-fix electrics, because the cable for the lighting and the drivers are laid in advance.

Wall and ceiling finishing in Batumi starts with the surface underneath

The site measurement shows which finish a wall will take. The site foreman goes through the rooms with a moisture meter, a two-metre straightedge and a lamp, and writes down everything found. That list shows what can be done straight away and what only after preparation.

Walls with large deviations are first plastered to guide beads. This is rough work, and we start the finishing only when the moisture meter shows that the plaster has dried.

The order of work

Each new job must not spoil the one before it. That gives the order we keep to, both across a whole apartment and in a single room:

1. Frames for plasterboard ceilings and boxing. They go up before the walls are skimmed, because the installation raises dust and knocks the corners.
2. Skimming, sanding and priming walls and ceilings. Sanding produces fine dust, so the flooring and doors are not in yet at this point.
3. Painting the ceiling and the first coat of paint on the walls, decorative plaster, microcement on walls.
4. Flooring and doors, then wall panels and mouldings, and after them the skirting boards.
5. The final coat of paint, once the doors, panels and mouldings are in and the joints with them are filled.
6. Wallpaper, when no dusty or wet work is left in the room. In these rooms the skirting boards go on after the wallpaper.
7. The stretch ceiling. Its profile is fixed to the finished wall, paint splashes are hard to wash off the film, and the heat gun used during installation is switched on only once the paint and wallpaper have dried. In such a room the ceiling cornice goes up after the film and covers the profile.

Breaking the order means redoing work. Abrasive dust from sanding scratches laminate if it was laid earlier, and wallpaper hung before the reveals are skimmed then has to be covered with plastic sheeting and still gets dirty.

Test patch and handover

The colour on the fan deck and the colour on your wall are not the same. Light from the window, reflection from the floor and the adjacent walls all change it. So we first try the paint shade on a patch of wall about a metre across, and a textured finish on a sample, and ask you to look at them during the day and in the evening with the lights on. We tint the whole quantity once you have approved the sample.

We sign off each finish against its own checklist, which is given on the page for that work. We look separately at what is most often missed: the junctions between different jobs. We check how the wallpaper meets the reveal and the architrave, a panel meets the ceiling, paint meets the stretch ceiling profile, a moulding meets a corner. We check corners with a square and flat surfaces with a straightedge. Any issues go into the acceptance certificate, and the stage is closed once they are fixed.

How much wall and ceiling finishing costs

The most common jobs in this section, skimming walls for painting and painting in two coats, each cost from 23 to 36 ₾ per m². That is the labour price; filler, primer and paint are costed separately from the materials list. We measure the surface being finished: walls by their total surface area, the ceiling by the floor area of the room.

Wallpaper hanging costs from 36 ₾ per m², and a single-level plasterboard ceiling from 48 ₾. A stretch ceiling starts at 78 ₾ per m², and this price already includes the film. The price goes up with walls in side light from large windows, where the filler goes on in several coats, old finishes that have to be stripped, work from a scaffold tower under high ceilings, recesses and light lines. It comes down with level white frame walls and with a stretch ceiling where the slab would otherwise take a long time to level. The final cost is set after the site measurement and once the estimate is agreed, and we write the price of each stage into the contract.

If you need just one job

Walls and ceilings can be updated one job at a time: repaint a room, rehang the wallpaper behind the bed, replace a ceiling or add mouldings. This usually takes a few days, and the rest of the apartment stays liveable the whole time.

Before such a job we look at how the new work will meet the old. If we are replacing a ceiling, we decide on the lighting in advance: a stretch ceiling needs a mounting platform for every light fitting, and a chandelier sometimes has to be moved from its old hook. We take old skirting boards and architraves off while we paint, and if they won't survive removal, their replacement goes into the estimate as a separate line. We do the sanding and frame installation during the hours when noise is permitted, from 08:00 to 23:00, and if the building's rules are stricter, we follow them.