Home & Garden

There are four ways that I know of to smooth over textured ceilings and I’ve tried them all.  If you want to do the same, take my advice…

Artex.  I hate it.  It’s definitely not Arty, but it is Textured.

The previous owners of my house applied Artex to most of the ceilings.
They probably did it to cover the fact that some of the ceilings
were cracked or sagging.

Somehow it doesn’t work in a Victorian house that I am trying to restore back to its former glory.

Here are the methods that I have tried to return the ceilings back to their original form.

Remove the Artex with a sander

One word of advice: Don’t!

Your house will be filled with dust and you’ll get through loads of face masks.

It also takes forever - that stuff is tough!  You’ll soon get tired arms doing this job.

Remove the Artex with a steamer
Amazingly, those steam strippers used for removing wallpaper will also remove Artex. The steam softens the Artex and you can scrape it off. It’s still a lot of effort though.
Beware – hot, melted Artex sticks to the skin and it’s hot. Wear thick gloves and other protection if you use this method.

Cover the Artex with a skim-coat
The makers of Artex sell a product, Smooth-It, which is designed for covering up textured surfaces. It galls me that Artex are making money twice – once for the Artex and once for the Smooth-It.
You can buy this ready mixed in large tubs, or as sacks of dry powder. Buy the powder – it’s considerably cheaper and you can mix it to the consistency that suits you.
I would only recommend this if you are reasonably handy at plastering.
If the texture is very deep, knock off the largest protruding pieces first otherwise you’ll be applying a lot of skim coat – probably requiring as many as 3 applications. Your arms are going to get sore!

Start again
Remove the ceiling entirely and put up a new one. Again, this is only practical if you are good at plastering. However, if your ceiling has cornices (or coving), it might be the only solution. Using a skim-coat to cover the Artex means that the cornice will “sink” into the ceiling by the depth of the coat.
If you have a period house as I do, you might be reluctant to do this. My ceilings are made from lath and plaster rather than the modern plasterboard. I want to retain as much of the original house as possible during the renovation.