I have a textured (not popcorn) ceiling that I wish to smooth over and paint. Looking to make the ceiling look like I had simply sheet rocked the ceiling and painted it. I believe that removing the textured ceiling by scraping would be messy and time consuming. I am wondering if I can simply skim coat the ceiling to make it smooth and then paint it. I believe that there should be a “prep” solution applied to the textured ceiling first and allowed to dry before skim coating. My concern is that the skim coat material will not adhere for a long time and start to separate from the underlying substrate. My questions are as follows:
1. Can I use a skim coat for this purpose?
2. Is there a special type of skim coating product?
3. Is there a pre skim coat prep to be applied?
Thank you for your help.
Steve
Replies
Steve, your concerns are correct, don’t do it.
Even if you tried and did knock most of it off, the remainder would dislodge one pc at a time and each skim with your trowel would drag “hitchhikers” across the surface.
Wet it down with a pump sprayer, scrape off onto your head and visqueen on the floor is one way.
Rent or buy an industrial drywall disc sander w/vac and have at it is another.
Best of luck
Edit: sorry, somehow I thought I was replying to a question ABOUT a popcorn ceiling. I see now in your post “not popcorn”. Asleep, drunk or blind.
Thank you very much for your input. I was wondering if this was going to be a problem.
We've done this many times. No need to do any prep unless the ceiling is in bad shape. We go over it with a 6" drywall knife to knock off any loose stuff or rough point. We take a gallon out of a 5-gallon bucket of joint compound then add water and mix with a mixing paddle. We want to get it to a consistency that allows us to roll it on the ceiling with a heavy paint roller cover. It's a 2 man job, one guy rolling and the other troweling. We use either an 18" trowel or, better yet, a squeegee trowel that can be used from the floor. Using the 18" trowels makes it easy to get it flat.
This is my son's home and I will send him your approach. Sounds like there is a learning curve to this but I'll see if he wants me or someone else to help him. Regardless, I thank you for your suggestion and time putting your thoughts together and forwarding them to me.
Keep us posted on the progress, I'll be tackling the same project in the next couple of months...every time I look up all I can see is an impending dust cloud.
No dust at all. You aren't removing anything unless you have popcorn and that requires an entirely different answer.
It's really pretty easy especially if you use the magic trowel. The first job we ever did this way turned out really nice.
Flo,
I’m glad somebody figured this out!
Thanks
Do you need to worry about Asbestos? Any textured ceiling applied prior to 1980, should be checked for asbestos before you remove it.