Hairline cracks interior walls - widen or paint over?

[Moose]

Hi!

We’re prepping our walk in robe, three built in robes, and one linen cupboard, for the install (27/11/19) of pre-fab shelving.

The company for the shelving did the design, measure and quote, and is manufacturing. We have to remove old internal steel and wooden components, and patch and paint the walls, ceilings, and floors.

After much Workshop community support for the demolition stage, I’m now up to prepping for patching. Our house is 30 years old, double brick, and has  a layer of plaster/render (?), not plaster board.

There are many cracks inside the cavities, as well as holes from the wooden insert/nail combos that held the shelves.

I’ve done lots of searching online and everything seems to say I should widen these cracks and then fill them. There’s just so many, and some seem tiny.

Best way forward? Also, if the old paint is bumpy, should I smooth it out? I’m worried I’ll make it too smooth and the new paint won’t stick.

Thank you for any advice!

Vicki

 

[ColR]

That is excellent advice.  I had used something similar in the recent past, not on cracks, but on divots in gyprock walls, and on the rips to the gyprock paper outer, which resulted with the ill informed leaving the blue painters tape on for many weeks (no surprise that it took old paint and paper with it when finally removed) after initial painting had been done.  At least it gave me plenty of experience with fixing such problems. However, I hadn’t noticed the CSR 3kg product before.  I will certainly have some big jobs like this when I help out at my daughters new (old) house 

thanks again

Col