Can anyone give me some advice for plastering my kitchen ceiling so I can cover the textured stippling effect? I’m guessing give it a quick scrape with a scraper to remove any high bits , pva and then skim with multi finish?

Depending how deep the stippling is but a decent plasterer will be able to go straight over the top of it

Test for asbestos, if clear…

quick scrape with a scraper…

Straight without pva ?
It’s like this at the moment

Skimming is dead easy ifthe base is consistant.

Not necessarily flat just consistantly uneven. How deep is the stippling?

You can mix in fine sand with the pva to form a key.

Not a plasterer so ignore if a wettrader pipes up.

That looks perfect for just skimming over. Don’t see how pva will improve anything there unless its porous?

If it’s Artex or similar, you could scrape the high bits off, then smooth it all over with a wet sponge, no need to plaster if it’s sound.

TBH, if you want a proper job you should have it overboarded then skimmed. You can flat down, PVA and then skim but you don’t know how good the key is to the original.

Im doing this in my place, Have been told by the plasterer to scrape off any high points, my design is different to yours, and for me to apply feb bond blue grit as a bonding agent. Hell then skim over for me.

TBH, if you want a proper job you should have it overboarded then skimmed.

This. I spoke to a number of plastered about my artex ceilings and they all talked about overboard then skim. Quicker, easier, cheaper. Certainly the case of scraping off the stuff was never an option. A guy at work did this and apparently it made a hell of a mess due to very fine airbourne dust that just transferred through the rest of his house despite doors being shut and he was cleaning it up for months afterwards.

I’ve recently had a leak above one room so the whole ceiling is going to get done and the job specced by the insurance company was to completely remove the old ceiling boards and replace. Sounds overkill but we’ll see.

Has anyone looked at the photo?

If its like that then its a case of filling the holes not smoothing the bumps?

In which case…

It has a key its essentially flat and you dont need to scrape.

Just skim it.

Has anyone looked at the photo?

If its like that then its a case of filling the holes not smoothing the bumps?

In which case…

It has a key its essentially flat and you dont need to scrape.

Just skim it.

Assuming it doesn’t fall off under the weight of the skim – some of my artex was coming off when I was painting the ceiling. Even if it is strong enough, what about the decades on ingrained muck and dust – how you going to clean that off to ensure you get a good key. See what a plasterer says.

No plasterer I spoke to was going to simply skim over it. They do this sort of thing a lot.

All artexed or painted surfaces should be treated before skimming over. You have a choice between blue grit or watered-down pva. Or, if you’re really brave, just use Thistle Unifinish on the ceiling without any preparation. Personally, I don’t use it because I don’t trust it but it’s supposed to be good stuff

I did it once. I employed a plasterer the second time.

About to do the same in my kitchen but the artex above the cooker hood is quite greasy. Any ideas how to de gunk the grease well enough for a skim of plaster to actually stick?

Most artex applied before 2000 will contain asbestos. I would suggest not scraping it off!

Just had my mid ’90’s house artex tested and it was asbestos free. So it is likely that any pre 2000 artex will contain asbestos and any professional would want it testing if they were going to disturb it and cause dust.

I always recommend over-boarding with new plaster boards on artex. Just not worth the risk for £30-50 worth of boards. The only exception is if you locate the ceiling joists & re-screw & use pva grit . Be aware that some older ceilings were fixed with nails rather than screws so you go re-skim & add more weight to it….. could end in tears!

All of the plasterers that did ours (different rooms at different times) just PVA and skimmed over it.

1970’s house with a different artex pattern in every room!

Have had several rooms with artex plastered over, no issues. Would not do it myself though.
Wouldn’t over boarding cause issues at coving?

Skim it. Any plasterer who suggest over boarding is taking the piss.

+1 tewit

Each to there own…. every job is different etc….

i’ve blue/green gritted and skimmed over in the past with no issues but have seen it done where the artex has come away under the plaster. also particully heavy artex can take some covering.
for the sake of 1/2 a day and cost of a few boards i would always overboard now. its not worth the hassle of saving a customer a few quid and then potentionally having problems they’ll want you to fix.

Skim it. Any plasterer who suggest over boarding is taking the piss.

Or being a professional who doesn’t want to over load the weight limit on the boards and have the whole lot in the floor.

A lot of old boards are nailed, some not that well. I prefer overboard and screwed to the joists for a long lasting job. If people want to cut corners that’s up to them.

If you have coving & want to keep it then obviously overboarding doesn’t work. In that case I would just pva & skim but if it’s thick, heavy artex would always re-screw to avoid any issues.

If necessary just add some drywall screws to the existing boards.

I’m just a decorater so what do I know. 🙂
The plasterers I’ve worked with have just bonded and skimmed. Of course, every job’s different.

I’m also about to do something like this in the bathroom. I’m going to put new plasterboard up over the top and get that skimmed. Also means moving lights etc is dead easy as you can make all new holes.

OK we did this when we bought our present house, which had awful swirly textured plaster from new, not Artex.

I started scraping off the high spots but that turned out to be hell on my arms and a waste of time. Our plasterer just skimmed over the lot, without using PVA and it has all stayed in place. In fact the extra layer of skim did not overload the ceilings and there has been no sign of sagging and no sign of separation even though the swirly ceilings were painted (a variety of disgusting yellows, purples and pinks!)

Our plasterer took care to tape over the cracks and joints in the existing ceiling but in the lounge where for some reason he didn’t tape, cracks have reappeared along the plasterboard joints thanks to the ceiling flexing when people walk around in the bedroom above.

We then applied dilute PVA in the hope of sealing the fresh plaster so as to reduce the numbers of coats of white emulsion but this was a waste of time and even a mistake because our rooms are big and anywhere we accidentally painted a few strokes of PVA over an area where PVA had already been applied and had dried, the second later just peeled off in sheets and caused no end of problems with peeling and bubbling when we began to apply the emulsion. So by all means apply PVA but do it all in one go, before any of it dries.

i would guess your pva wasn’t diluted enough, a second coat should soften up the first and still soak in. often used several coats for very dry backgrounds before skimming. anyway you shouldn’t pva plaster before painting just use a emulsion mist coat

SBR then skim. scrim any cracks.

Don’t PVA! that is not the right stuff, use SBR. don’t PVA anything you plan to paint either! PVA needs relegating to the bin, but some people want to PVA everything!!!

Heh. The house we lived in the UK needed a couple of rooms doing, basically to get rid of the badly done 70s artex.

The guy who came in to quote said he wouldn’t touch it as the whole lot looked like it was about to come down.

Furniture went out, sheets went down. Ladders came in.

Took about 40 seconds for the living room ceiling to end up on the floor.
Then two days to tidy up.

Kitchen didn’t take much longer. Except I had to be a bit more careful round the units……

The stuff was about an inch thick (three or four distinct layers) and looked like it was held on to the beams with 100 year old tacks.

(Checked for asbestos first, luckily, as the dust cloud that went out of the front door basically filled the entire garden and covered the road……… and most of the neighbours cars, and gardens.)

How did you guys check for asbestos? Any recommendations?

PVA needs relegating to the bin, but some people want to PVA everything!!!

pva does have its uses, i use it a lot when plaster patching

I was told to avoid PVA in high moisture areas due to the moisture potentially softening the PVA , rendering it useless.

I had an artexed ceiling in the kitchen on old plaster board. I took the whole lot off and reboarded back onto the wood frame. So glad I did that.

They scraped off the high parts then painted on the green grit stuff then plastered our ceilings.

In our house the decorative roof was stuck to wall paper because they were lazy and a steamer removed both

How did you guys check for asbestos? Any recommendations?

I just rang the local council and they recommended a place that they used. Was fairly simple and painless, not hugely expensive from what i can remember.

Not compared to the cost of removing it if we’d found any! (or the cost of redoing the ceiling anyway.)