To think artex ceilings are not that bad

[Lardlizard]

Better than seeing cracks and imperfections as long as it’s a sort of random design not too swirly !

As I don't spend time staring at the ceiling artex doesn't bother me.

However the absolute shit that decided to artex the walls in my bathroom should have a pox cursed upon him. It's hideous and awful to get rid off. I hate it. Ceilings - fine. Bathroom wall - NO!

We had random pattern artex in our hallway and up the stairs in one of our houses. It had little points. It was the only place we have lived in with children where we weren't constantly battling dirty handprints....

They are awful, and expensive to get rid of. The people who owned my house before us artexed EVERYTHING 😖

I wouldn't choose them on purpose, but tbh how much time do you spend looking at your ceilings? There are so many other things wrong with my house that I can focus on instead

I'd never really given these a thought before - at least now I know what it's called! My grandparents had a swirly design on their ceiling, that moved around the light fittings - I must have spent hours tracing the pattern with my eyes and looking at it as a child.
My childhood home on the other hand had it only in two rooms- a kind of spiky ceiling like below. Which was fine, until we put in a bunk bed - and being a bouncy child I would sit up too quickly, play on my bed, bounce around etc. I lost count of the number of times I scraped my scalp on that stuff!

I loved my GP's ceiling, though - never really thought about what a ballache it must have been to decorate it like that in the first place!

All of my ceilings are artex. I'm not going to pay to have them nice and smooth. I don't look up that much. In my last house the walls were all artex, I did change that!

I grew up in a 1960’s built house that had the same ceiling as @WeirdAndPissedOff shows. I never found it offensive at the time.
I doubt I’d notice if I walked into a home with artex ceilings.

I’d certainly not dismiss a house for having artex ceilings. I don’t hate them, I just accept them.

Artexed house. Unfortunately several walls have moved since construction and there were several different styles used, and I've ended up having to get the artex out (which smells like vomit) to patch and redo ceilings so that there is a uniform effect within each room that has been altered.

Swirls or random aren't so bad, but I cannot achieve the stipply drip effect at all!

Actually living with it isn't problematic. It's best just to accept it as a period feature.

We have broken leather throughout the house (built 1998) and I much prefer it to a bland flat ceiling

It's a bugger to paint ...apparently

My parents has it until recently when they paid to have it removed. It looked like huge overlapping albums, very bizarre. My children were fascinated by it when they were small, used to spend ages gazing at the ceiling

Artex has asbestos in it
Some does. Some doesn't. We had a water leak that caused an artexed bedroom ceiling to collapse. It had to be tested before it could be removed and replaced but it was asbestos-free.

I quite like it here and there in a retro kind of way! either my mum and dad or the people they bought our family house from couldn't get enough of it, squirly ceilings and 'stiff peaks' like meringue on the walls. They just have the ceilings now. I think matte looks better and much more subtle than shiny paint but as long as it is kept clean by repainting now and again it adds a bit of 'of its time' interest. Didn't know about the asbestos though. Thought it was just fancy plaster work!

That one is fine @WeirdAndPissedOff. The ones I don't like are those with huge swirls on them.

I think artex is awful, I have none in my home.
I'm sure dh told me once that his mum artexed everything one day, including the toilet cistern

I have it in one large room. It looked really crap and then we painted Matt white and it is fine.

I'm really not a fan and have finally recently got rid of the last artexed ceiling in my home!

It's truly awful. I looked at a house to buy in 1999. The vendor showed us round and proudly pointed out the freshly done artex in every room. So thick and prominent. We didn't buy it! Our current house has sharp artex in the walls of the tiny bathroom. We've all been injured. I cannot wait to have it changed.

If you have them, and then get rid of them, it feels great! So much fresher and cleaner.

What about the massive waste of resources involved in removing artex just for the sake of fashion?

They look nice enough but they're absolute arseholes to paint evenly.

It's awful, very dated and hideous. Almost as bad as woodchip wallpaper.

It is awful. The amount of dust the swirls trap is grim and I bet most never get cleaned.

I don't mind it but I think people have a coloured view because it's what the older generation would have before they knew how bad asbestos was.

I wouldn't have it because I don't want to start turning into my mother

This is ours - 1960s house - we also have the original parquet flooring and the open wood banister. Oh and the garage that is storage as it’s too small for modern cars. I find spider webs cling which is very annoying.

We've just bought an Edwardian house this year which at some point was artexed. Had to rip a lot of it out to have some damp work done (it was visibly damaged in some places) and then had everything replastered. Honestly it's a relief it isn't everywhere now because it just didn't go with the house! Luckily we had it tested and there was no asbestos. There is still an artex ceiling in the bathroom which I don't really mind and some going up the side of the stairs. Not dealing with that yet though as we will need a feature under the stairs (an archway) looked at when you can have people in your home again. I think in some homes it goes but ours feels so much more like itself with smooth walls.