To be considering artexing my ceiling?

[KirstyJC]

We moved into this house 3 years ago. It is a lovely old cottage with the usual woodchip-holding-the-walls-up kind of decoration that you might expect. We are slowly sorting this out, but are really skint so having to do it ourselves.

My problem is the ceilings, in particular the hallway and sitting room. They are a pure vision in artex. It is like someone was trying to decide which pattern was the most horrible and couldn't decide, so went for a mix of all of them.

The sitting room has: fan swirls, thick combed lines, wavy fan lines, and wobbly pattern around the light fitting. It is appalling and despite us living with it for 3 years, it still hasn't faded into the background.

So, looking around it seems that my options are to either
a) pay someone to sort it out, which we can't afford for the forseeable future,
b) try and live with it which is failing miserably,or
c) sort it myself.

My recent plastering attempts are, um, well lets just say it's a good job it was inside a walk-in cupboard! So I am now considering buying more artex and going over the top, with a less in-your-face stipple effect instead. That would still be bad, but trust me it would be a whole lot less bad than currently!

I just can't seem to bring myself to buy artex! Would that BU?

I don't think you should do it. I would wait and save to get it gone. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Pay someone to sort it out - would the local college course like practice?

We can't pay someone - it would be a couple of hundred to sort it out and it would be years before we could afford that, as there are so many other things we need to do!

There is no local college sadly, the nearest that does this sort of thing is about 17 miles away.

Isn't it possible to plaster over Artex rather than re-artexing? Why not get a couple of estimates for having the hall and sittingroom done, it may not be as expensive as you think. It would be awful to spend time and money on DIY and and up with it looking just as bad. We had the same problem with a kitchen several houses and many years ago, and I did the re-artexing. I was hoping for reasonably smooth finish but ended up with a sort of Spanish rough-cast hacienda effect, not recommended.

No, I know it wouldn't be a smooth finish - I tried that with the plastering! That's why I was wondering about stipple. We have that in one of the bedrooms and it looks positively gorgeous in comparison!

I simply can't see us having more than £50 to spare on it for years, so there is no way we can afford it.

God, don't even try, it's really quite a skilled job to get it right ime and best left to the professionals. It will need sealing first and then skimming, bad plastering looks awful.

We had it done in our front room, it took 2 plasterers a full day of non stop work on a ceiling that is 15 ft square and cost 800 quid but that included a wall too in another room.

We had a not do experienced plasterer do our bedroom ceiling and I wish we hadn't bothered, half of it fell down and once he'd fixed it the cracks began to appear...

Leave it. Why spend money making it worse?

You can usually get a ceiling skimmed for two or three hundred, so start saving.

Sorry, that was to skim over rather than have new artex.

Dame - I wasn't going to try and plaster it myself - I know what my plastering is like!! I can seal it myself though, we have some UPA glue stuff already so wouldn't need to fork out for that as well.

I would still be planning on getting it done properly in time, but I need to not be looking at it for the next few years. It does my head in!

There must be another solution!?

Not wanting to heap misery on you but be careful: lots of the older artex contains asbestos and you shouldn't start messing about with it before checking. Left in situ it should be harmless enough unless it is so old it is crumbling.

If I were you I would take on night shifts/ a third job/ drug running (slight exaggeration) to get the money to get rid of it!!

Ah right,I see. Oh just do it in a corner and see if it works, who knows,it could work and look fab. But I do think plasterers are paid a premium for a reason, because it's really hard work!

Good luck! I sympathise,I hated our artex, it was like a wedding cake icing

Hire an industrial sander, it is the only way.

Or get some plasterboard, cut to fit the ceiling in the hallway, use long screws so there is a gap between the artex and the plasterboard so it lies straight.

You should add a coat of skimming but if you paint it you should get away with it for a year or so until you get it done properly.

I have read that about old artex Plum, thank you. I wasn't planning to remove it - it is so deep in places (the hallway is about half an inch thick in the pattern so chipping it off would take forever anyway. Plus it's probably holding the ceiling up, if the woodchip was anything to go by!

You could try sanding it. It will be a dust apocalypse but it might look less awful. Or possibly more awful.

I don't think you will get new artex into all the troughs if you just bung it on.

Xpost sorry.

Oh wow - an industrial sander on the ceiling! I can't imagine what a mess that would make!! Plus if it does have asbestos in that's a big no-no! Don't think I'll try that, but thanks!

I don't want to plasterboard either, I don't fancy putting screws into the ceiling in case it falls down.

Thanks for all suggestions though - please keep them coming! Anything to stop my buying artex......

Can you not move?

Sanding old Artex would be an extremely bad idea.

It is now thought that the risks of the asbestos content are not high, and not all Artex and similar coatings contain it, but sanding it is the worst thing you could possibly do.

Your only credible option is to get a price for a decorator to flattern and plaster over it......but yeah prob will be a couple of hundred pounds but it will look lovely.

Artex is so dated, absolutely no point you going over it with more artex, would be like polishing a turd :)

Ghoul....the thought had occured to me!!

A polished turd on the ceiling would look better than the current artex, believe me!

Have a go yourself.
Will be less than £50 prob for gubbins, and cant look any worse?
I would, in your shoes.
Good luck .x.

Haha - well you know the saying you can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter.

There you go, a turdy glittery ceiling would look lovely! :)

DH is a painter and decorator - he hasn't artexed for years.

Artex must have been out of fashion for at least 20 years. It can't be long until it becomes The In Thing again, just bide your time and you will be at the cutting edge of home decor fashion.

B&Q do a 10k bag of powder for just under £14 plus I would need the brush tool thingy, which they don't seem to stock.

Homebase has a repair kit which is a bit more, £25, but it includes the brush. That would be enough to cover the hallway ceiling (very small area) and then I could keep the brush and just get the powder for the ceiling if it did look passable. I have brushes/sealant to put over first already plus buckets/plaster mixing thing for the drill etc.

So it would be £25 for one room, and maybe another £28 or £42 depending on how much powder it takes.

I must admit I am tempted - that's a cheap temp solution!