Wall Texture Question: Roller Stipple or Orange Peel?

blackjack said:

Ya gotta take a better picture.

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Blackjack -

I'd love to but I don't know if that's possible. I think that first pix is about as good as I can get....taken at an angle to the wall it shows the texture and the ruler shows the scale of the texture. Did you open it up/expand the pix? The last one, with the beige wall, shows up fairly well, I thought.

I will say this...if it's orange peel, it definitely is not 'hotel ugly', you know that super heavy orange peel you often see in a cheap motel. What I have is not that at all. The 2nd and 3rd pix show how subtle the texture is whereas the 1st pix makes the texture look very pronounced due to the shadowing and sheen of the semi-gloss overspray.

Anyway....lot of words but I'm still at a loss. I now have 3 heavy coats of primer (1 x with a burned out 3/8" nap (over a 3/4" nap that made the texture too 'sharp'), 2 x heavy coats with a 1/2" sheepskin roller. Looking better than no texture but still doesn't match. I plan to try some thinned down mud AND trying a Homax orange peel tomorrow on a scrap piece of drywall and then lightly sand both and see what looks the best.

well you've got the right idea about running a sample piece and bump sanding it. i'm leaning toward old smooth wall painted many, many times.

I suppose the best way to check it out would be to look around the trim areas. the 1-2 inches around the case, base, doors jambs,and ceiling. the only way those areas can be painted is with a brush. there should be very little or no texture (compared to other places)other than brush strokes.

in either case, a light- med orangepeel should get you close as you are trying to match age.. i'd dump the roll mud idea and just go for the light texture. just make sure you move the can around in a circle over your patch a few times to cover some of the surrounding area for a better match and then give it a light sand. you'll still need to load the new area several times with paint to try to match the depth of the old which looks pretty loaded...

blackjack said:

.....I suppose the best way to check it out would be to look around the trim areas. the 1-2 inches around the case, base, doors jambs,and ceiling. the only way those areas can be painted is with a brush. there should be very little or no texture (compared to other places)other than brush strokes......

Click to expand...

blackjack -

So I checked the 1-2" near the baseboards, etc and found that the texture did NOT go all the way to the wood trim; the 1-2" near the wood trim was definitely brushed. So I'm guessing that means you would say the texture was simply roller stipple built up over time?

If I had to take a guess now, that's what I'd say, because of the baseboard thing you talked about and because there's no other room in the home that has that heavy of a texture.

What I ended up doing: tried to lightly sponge on sheetrock mud, let it dry, and lightly sanded it. The end result was better than nothing but the texture it left after sanding looked (literally) very close to a cantaloupe rind. Next I tried using the Homax Orange Peel stuff mentioned above. Set in on highest pressure setting and the smallest/tightest pattern possible. Sprayed it on, lightly sanded it, primed it and then, to "round" the texture a little more I sanded it AGAIN after priming.

Not perfect (nuts!) but it's as good as I can get it.

BTW, if anyone out there in DIY-land knows how to match texture, please let me know. Even with my being convinced this was just built up roller texture, I have no idea how to match it....heavy, HEAVY amounts of paint and a decently long roller nap still wasn't matching it.

Thanks to everyone!