ᐅ Working on a concrete ceiling

Hello everyone,

We have finished the shell of our house and are now starting with the interior work. I have a question regarding our precast concrete ceilings. On the ground floor, we don’t want to install a dropped ceiling; the plasterer offered to plaster the ceilings there. In the basement, however, he said that wouldn’t be necessary.

Now my perhaps naive question: If I don’t plaster or drop the ceiling, how do I proceed with finishing it? Obviously, I need to fill the joints with filler, but then what? Is it simply painted afterwards?

How did you approach this?

Thanks for your help.

A friend of mine initially only wanted to fill the joints. However, he then decided to skim coat the entire ceiling with a fine finishing compound. The result is nearly perfect.

For our concrete ceiling on the ground floor, we only had the joints filled and then painted directly over that. The result is absolutely fine, but if someone wants a perfect finish, plastering is necessary.

But a basement ceiling? That definitely works. You will probably need to apply at least three coats of paint yourself for full coverage.

With a good quality paint, you don’t have to apply multiple coats. For concrete surfaces, however, please make sure to use a primer; otherwise, it will eventually start to peel off.

It definitely depends on the intended use. For simple storage rooms, for example, filling and painting is sufficient, but concrete needs to be primed.