How To Smooth Out A Textured Ceiling? - DIY Chatroom

tac533 · 11-12-2008, 10:01 AM

The ceiling has a fine/medium texture to it--not huge "popcorn" type bumps. Can I successfully coat with drywall mud to achieve a smooth surface? Thanks.

RippySkippy · 11-12-2008, 10:25 AM

Yes you can...

I did something similar to the my old house and found it quicker to take a large paint scraper and scrape the wall/ceiling using moderate heavy pressure. The larger textured bumps would fall off...the small ones stayed and were covered with mud. If you scrape, make sure you broom the wall well, you'll want to make sure any loose chunks come down. After skim coating the walls it looked like new drywall. Some say that's too much work and say either rip the old DW out or put up 3/8". I didn't and don't regret it a bit...

One think I learned when skim coating, keep a spray bottle handy, when the mud gets a bit dry and stops smoothing well, spritz the surface with water and with practice you'll end up with a wall that's perfectly smooth.

tac533 · 11-12-2008, 11:06 AM

Thank you, for the reply. I am encouraged by your success!

bjbatlanta · 11-15-2008, 06:07 PM

I would tend to agree that the more texture you can remove, the less mud work you;ll need to do to get to a smooth finish. Depending on the age of the house, sanding with #80 grit paper may even work. If it's just a spray texture and hasn't been painted, it should sand fairly easily. As a rule, "popcorn" and "stipple" textures are considered a finished product and aren't painted in new construction. (I don't know as to your particular texture.) If it's an older house, it has likely been painted which will require the "dreaded" scraping to get as much off as possible. I would also sand with #80 grit paper once scraping is done. Then skim (2 coats at least), sand again, prime, touch up as needed, and paint.

Sir MixAlot · 11-15-2008, 09:19 PM

It can be done. Here's some pictures of an old school popcorn ceiling (Vermiculite), that i skim coated. This type of popcorn texture which was done in the early 70's is hard as a rock and does not scrape off as easy as the more traditional poly type popcorn. So I alway's skim coat it. I think it's the type of texture the OP has. It's going to take two coats of skimming with an 12" knife. After the first coat trim all high edges with an 6" knife then do the second coat. Really this takes a lot of skill, and might be better left to a professional. Depending on your mudding skills. Good Luck!

gorf · 12-04-2008, 06:58 PM

WOW skim coating over pop corn - what a brave soul!

We hired a painter, he came in with three guys and spray bottles and stripped the whole house in one day! Fare warning, they do pop corn for a reason - it's cheap! Sheetrock, tape one coat of mud and the spray everything with pop corn. Means if you strip it off you have to finish the mud job.

bjbatlanta · 12-04-2008, 07:17 PM

Gorf, if you re-read the post, you'll see SirMix was talking about a different type of texture than what is used now. The "styrofoam popcorn" is what you had. Easilly removed if it hasn't been painted. Yes, textures became popular during the building boom when "production" took precedence over quality. Not all drywall finishers are capable of quality "slick" finish. And when you're getting paid "by the board", time is money.......

yesitsconcrete · 12-05-2008, 08:07 AM

we bought scrapers that attach to wet/dry vacs & they work great & not only for drywall,,, gottem from dustlesstechnology 1st on ebay { no financial interest, btw }