In my professional life I've always bought the best quality tools because it just makes simple sense. But even if you're an amateur and you're attempting a job it still pays to buy the best tools you can afford because you are saving money by doing the job yourself so the money saved you can put towards good quality tools and then you've got them for time and time again. But I also make suggestions for cheaper alternatives.

Here are 3 tips for you, preparation, preparation and preparation, sorry if I keep saying that but it's true. The preparation starts when you buy the plaster by fresh plaster from a builders merchant or DIY suppliers, these retailers have a quick turn round in materials so the stuff you are buying won't have been on the shelf very long which is what you want. Always use clean tap water.

Now it's time to take a deep breath and go for it. If you followed the preparation you should have no problems. The worst thing that can happen is you take too long and the plaster starts to 'drag' as you apply it to the wall, and the plaster seems not to be as 'free flowing', but it's not the end of the world, take stock of what you think is going wrong. But it shouldn't come to that if you know that you are taking on something that's not too much for you in terms of size of the wall and surface area. If you plan to plaster a wall that's made a brick and you are patching it up what you want to do is apply as much water as possible to the area of the brickwork, you will have to do this for a few times just flick it on the wall with the brush our use a sprayer and just wait to a few minutes to let it soak in and then do it again and then just keep doing it until the wall is saturated this will make it much much easier when you apply the finished plaster.

Your wall is now covered with plaster, but sorry no time for a break, this is the crucial part, you should have the trowel, large brush and a bucket of water at your side. Take a minute or two to get your stiff brush and clean the trowel with water a couple of times. If you've now got your wall covered in plaster from corner to corner you are doing great that part is really the hardest all you have to do now is just keep flicking water on the plaster and just keep going over it back and forth open down. If you have a flat, bump free surface, great! it's all down hill now.

I give an account now of the quantities of plaster and water used and the timescale that it's taken me to get to this stage, so you can assess for yourself what your project will be and how and what I did can relate to what you are doing. I give a description of what the condition of the plaster should be in at this stage; it should be touch dry but still workable. Although the Finish is good at this stage I can make it even better and carry on troweling up just to give it a final 'polish'.