You may have wondered what plasterboard is and why you might want to either paint or skim plaster the plasterboard so I put this article together to answer some of your questions.
What should I do with a newly plasterboarded wall?
Plasterboard in the UK is made of Gypsum (which is a mineral) which is then coated in paper. There are different types of plasterboard, but generally they all have similar paper finishes. So once you have your wall in place there are a number of directions you can take and each one has it's benefits...
- Plaster / skim over the plasterboard
This is by far the most popular choice in the UK because it will give you a smooth robust finish. It lasts for decades and can handle being painted, then wallpapered then stripped of wallpaper and re-painted etc. There are a number of types of plaster that you can skim the wall with so for example you can choose an even more robust plaster skim for high traffic areas such as a hallway. In most cases you'll need a professional to get the smooth finish that you will have seen in UK houses.
- Using plasterboard without a skim-coat of plaster
If you are on a low budget then painting directly onto plasterboard is an option. You'd need to make sure that the edges of the plasterboard are neatly finished and placed where they cannot be damaged as the edges of plasterboard are fragile. Gaps between each plasterboard would need filling with joint filler and you'd be advised to do a mist coat before applying the full paint. The trade-off with painting directly is firstly in finish - it will not be as smooth as skimmed plasterboard and it won't be as robust as skimmed plasterboard because over time the paper could be damaged. However, if you were to paint and (if the paint wasn't too thick) then you could hypothetically at a later date get the plasterboard skimmed, which may be a good way of managing your budget.
You could also wallpaper directly over the plasterboard, but bear in mind that you will likely not be able to remove the wallpaper without removing the plasterboard coating paper too and you certainly wouldn't be able to skim over wallpaper, so you'd need new plasterboard if you wanted to revert to a painted finish.
Tiling onto plasterboard directly is fine as the flat surface is beneficial although there are other products or methods which address that need. Removing tiles from plasterboard would damage the plasterboard so you'd need new plasterboard if you wanted to remove the tiles. Technically you could plaster over tiles, but this is not advisable and many plasterers wont do it.
Final thoughts
In summary, if you can you should get plasterboard skimmed with plaster unless you are on a tight budget or don't need that super smooth plastered finish.