Roughcasting & Dry Dash
Most of what we do. New dash on a bare wall, and taking an old brown or grey coat off a house and putting a white, black, speckled or golden one back on.
What this involvesRenfrew based
Roughcasting, Rendering and Plastering in Renfrew
We are a Renfrew firm, and most of the houses in our work section are within a short run of the door. If your dash has gone brown, patchy or has been painted over and is flaking, that is the job we do more than any other.
Renfrew and the towns round it went up largely between the wars and in the two decades after, in block and brick, roughcast from new. Houses built together reach the end of a coat together, which is why one street can suddenly look like everybody has decided to do their house at once.
Outside we do roughcasting, dry dash, harling, smooth render, repairs to failed render and new work on extensions, garages and garden walls. Inside we do plastering and skimming, Artex and heavy texture taken flat, ceilings down and re-boarded, coving and Venetian polished plaster. One firm for both means one conversation and nobody waiting on anybody else.
40jobs photographed, before and after
9services, outside work and inside work
118photographs, every one of them ours
What we do
Nine things, and we do all of them ourselves
Outside work and inside work from the one firm, which means the roughcaster and the plasterer are the same person and nobody is waiting on anybody else.
Smooth Render
A flat, modern finish instead of a textured one. Dash off, wall levelled, render on. It changes the decade a house looks like it was built in.
What this involves
Render & Roughcast Repairs
Cracks, hollow patches, stone showing through and black streaks running down a wall. Cut back to sound work, made good and finished to match.
What this involves
New Build & Extension Render
Bare blockwork to a finished wall, matched to the house it is attached to, so nobody can tell which part is new.
What this involves
Plastering & Skimming
Inside work. Walls and ceilings skimmed flat, old plaster hacked off and replaced, new boarding taped and finished ready for paint.
What this involves
Artex Removal
Swirls, stipple and heavy texture taken to a flat ceiling. Overboarded or skimmed over rather than scraped, which keeps the dust down.
What this involves
Ceilings & Coving
Cracked, sagging and collapsed ceilings taken down, re-boarded and skimmed, with coving run back in at the wall line.
What this involves
Venetian Polished Plaster
A polished, marble like finish for a feature wall, a fireplace or a hallway. Fraser trained for this at a Venetian plastering academy.
What this involves
Garden Wall Render
Retaining walls, boundary walls and patio walls rendered and finished so the garden matches the house.
What this involvesRecent work
Walls and Rooms We Have Finished
Six of the forty. Every one of them has its own page with the before shots left in.
Rear elevation re-dashed in white
Roughcasting and dry dash, Render and roughcast repairs
See this job
Brick and old dash taken to fresh dash
Roughcasting and dry dash, Render and roughcast repairs
Detached houses in a light dry dash
Roughcasting and dry dash
Media wall, skimmed walls and a lit coffer ceiling
Plastering and skimming, Artex removal
See this jobBefore and after
The same wall, before we started and when we finished
Drag the handle across. These are his own photographs of his own jobs, not a brochure.
Terrace re-dashed in white. Drag the handle to see the before.
Terrace re-dashed in white
Roughcasting and dry dash
Rear elevation re-dashed in white
Roughcasting and dry dash
End terrace re-dashed in white
Roughcasting and dry dash
White and black dry dash on a corner semi
Roughcasting and dry dash
Media wall, skimmed walls and a lit coffer ceiling
Plastering and skimming
See all 40 jobsHow we do it
What is actually happening under a finished wall
Three photographs from one two storey extension. Most of a rendering job is the part you never see.
Blockwork or a stripped wall
Whatever is behind the finish, this is where it starts. Bare block on new work, or an old coat taken off back to something sound.
Scratch coat, combed
The coat nobody sees and the coat that decides whether the job lasts. It levels the wall and gives the finish something to grip.
The finish on
Roughcast, dry dash or smooth render, worked to a wet edge so no join shows across the elevation.
Why us
Why People Have Us Back
No badges and no star ratings on this page. These are the four things that actually decide whether a render job lasts.
We sound the wall before we price it
A wall can look perfect and be hollow across half of it, and you can only hear that. Tapped with a hammer, sound render rings and render that has let go sounds hollow. We find the real edge of the failure and show you where it falls before anything comes off, rather than discovering it on day two with the scaffold up.
The coat you never see is the one we take time over
The scratch coat does the levelling and the bonding and nobody ever looks at it. Rush it, or put a finish on blockwork that is soaking or bone dry, and the joints of the blocks come through the finish by the second winter. We would rather come back the next day than force a coat on.
Outside and inside from the same firm
A house being re-dashed outside very often needs something doing inside. Having the roughcaster and the plasterer be the same person means one set of dates, one price and nobody standing about waiting for another trade to finish.
We tell you what we will not promise
That new work will match a wall that has weathered twenty years, because nothing matches that. A fixed day months out, because nobody honest can give you one. And we will not tell you a repair will hold when the wall behind it is the problem.
Two halves of the trade
Walls outside, rooms inside
Outside
Roughcast, dry dash and render on houses, extensions, gables and garden walls. Full re-dashes, repairs and new work.
- Roughcasting & Dry Dash
- Smooth Render
- Render & Roughcast Repairs
- New Build & Extension Render
- Garden Wall Render
Inside
Walls and ceilings skimmed flat, Artex covered and taken smooth, ceilings re-boarded, coving run and polished plaster.
See the interior jobs
Who you are dealing with
Fraser, and a van you will see round Renfrew
McLellan Master Plasterers is Fraser McLellan, working out of Renfrew. The name on the van says master plasterers and roughcasting specialists, and that is the split: the walls outside and the rooms inside, done by the same firm.
Most of what we do is roughcasting and dry dash on houses round Renfrew, Paisley and into Glasgow, with plastering, ceilings and Artex work filling the days between.
What customers say
Customer reviews
These three cards are examples showing where reviews will sit. They are not real customer reviews and nobody said them. Real ones go here once they have been collected.
A real review from one of Fraser's customers will sit here, in their own words, saying what the job was and how it went.Example card, not a real review
Reviews are worth more when they name the actual work: the wall, the finish and whether the place was left tidy. That is what will go in these cards.Example card, not a real review
Nothing in these three boxes was said by a customer. They are here so you can see where real reviews will sit once they have been collected.Example card, not a real review
Where we work
Renfrew and the towns round it
Ring and tell us where you are and we will give you a straight yes or no rather than a maybe.
Straight answers
Questions we get asked most
Do I need the whole house done or can you just do the bad bit?
Both are real answers and which one applies is decided by tapping the wall rather than by looking at it. Sound render rings and render that has let go sounds hollow. If the hollow area is one patch on an otherwise sound wall, that is a repair. If it is half an elevation, patching it is chasing the problem round the house.
What is the difference between roughcasting, harling, wet dash and dry dash?
Harling is the old Scottish word for roughcasting and means the same thing. Wet dash has the stone chips mixed into the mortar and the whole lot thrown at the wall. Dry dash has the mortar on first and the chips thrown onto it while it is still green, which gives the sharper, more even look most people mean by pebble dash.
Can you take the dash off and give me a smooth wall instead?
Yes, and it is one of the things we are asked for most. The dash comes off, the wall is brought properly flat and a smooth render goes on. It is more work than a re-dash because there is no texture to hide a ripple in, so the levelling coat underneath is the whole job.
Do you do inside work as well as outside?
Yes, and it is the same firm either way. Skimming, boarding, ceilings, coving, Artex and polished plaster inside; roughcast, dash and render outside. It means one person to deal with and nobody waiting on anybody else.
Will scraping my Artex ceiling make a mess?
We do not scrape it. The ceiling is either overboarded or the texture is prepared and skimmed over, which keeps the dust down and avoids disturbing a material that on ceilings of that age is better left where it is.
How quickly can you come and look?
Ring and ask and you will get a real day rather than a vague one. Most of our work is within a short run of Renfrew, so coming out to look at a wall is not an expedition.
Do you work in the winter?
Outside work depends on the weather rather than the month. Render and dash will not go on in a frost or into driving rain, and forcing it is how a wall cracks in its first year. Inside work carries on regardless.
What will you not promise me?
That new work will match a wall that has weathered for twenty years, because nothing matches that. A fixed day months out, because nobody honest can give you one. And we will not tell you a repair will hold when the wall behind it is the problem.
Get in touch
Tell us about the job
Tell us what the wall or the room looks like now and we will come back to you with a price and a straight answer about what it needs.
Ring us for a no obligation quote
Fraser answers the phone. Send a photo on WhatsApp if that is easier.