ah, Rita, Rita, Rita...why on EARTH did you gloss your ceilings?

[SpringHeeledJack]

The old lady who had this house before (Rita) kept it lovely but she glossed the ceilings- down to the picture rails naaaargh! Our builder told me this is pretty common

he's doing the tutting and blowing cheeks out thing, and making out there's nowt we can do about it, and that he'll have to do it (at huuuge cost)

has anyone else had these? What did you do with em?

far as I can tell this will mean either 1. sanding them and then using emulsion or 2. using something oil based (eg eggshell?) to cover it. Can't say am thrilled about either

[lazy]

tvm

Hi SHJ - not seen you for aaages! Still knee-deep in house stuff then?

No idea about how to get rid of the gloss - I guess he is right, but would the ceilng fall down if you just emulsioned over?

Where did Rita go? Is she all right?

Think I would pay someone to sand.

Emulsion over it - my grandfather was a painter decorator and he recommended it to hide old water marks etc

better or worse than woodchip on the ceilings, I wonder or artex

You have my sympathy - ours, we have concluded, need to be reskimmed whatever, so we have little choice other than paying.

Sand ceilings - hire/buyone of those little handheld jobs. And some safety glasses. Then emulsion.

I lived in a flat with artex cielings - large concentric circles, joining up. And painted silver.

We have glossed ceiling in bathroom and inside windows. Stops the black [We live in damp rural area!!]

aww, thanks all

and to BTM- yes, still battling with house!- dunno about knee deep but currently sitting up to my ankles in stripped wallpaper

schobe Rita went into a home. She was very old, and had lived in the house as a teenager when it was built. I hope she's still alive (also am a bit worried in spite of myself that, if she's died and can float over at will, she would be VERY cross about the state of her garden)

thanks also for the Hideous Ceiling posts. They have (strangely) made me feel better

apparently emulsion will peel off...am not to keen to risk it as I hate painting ceilings, and want to do it once and once only

it's looking like a plaster skim at the moment

gah

ah, yes, imnot- I can see that it'd be useful under some circs, but this one was prob done in 1966 and has gorn yellow

I cannot face reglossing it

Is it painted on the plaster, or properly on lining paper? If there's lining paper, just strip it, reline and away you go.

If it's on the plaster you can usually cover it with an oil based undercoat (you still have to rub the gloss down with wire wool so the undercoat has a key to stick to). Then emulsion top coat.

I suppose, now I'm thinking, that if you rubbed it down well enough you could probably just use several coats of emulsion.

It's got to be better than the stripped pine ceilings we have in our rental. It makes everything so bloody dark. Gets to be a problem when you can't tell the difference between black and navy opaque tights in the morning, so have to go with brown instead!

We have had this before. Not only that, but they glossed all of the coving ( hideous lovely polystyrene stuff) and then used bathroom sealant all the way along the join, between the coving and the ceiling.

To add insult to injury, beneath all of this was either woodchip, on some ceilings, or artex on others.

Ahhhhh

scaryteacher we have the pine ceilings too. I hate them, but ours are not stripped. They have a thick coat of yellowing varnish. Otherwise I would have painted them white by now...

We have the joy of trying to remove ultimate combo of white woodchipped ceiling with blood red gloss on the coving.

Ever had polystrine tiles on the ceiling?

You can buy ceiling paint which is spirit based to go on ceilings. It is great for covering old stains, and should go over old gloss without and problems.

I have the pine ceilings too. A quick sand and a couple of coats of paint does the trick.

I wonder if there used to be a smoker in the house?

MissMarples....yes, have horrible polystyrene tiles on spare bedroom ceiling. Have spent days and days trying to strip them off painstakingly with a scraper while teetering on top of a stepladder, and still only half done. Have given up and will pay someone to finish it. Utter nightmare. Have you got them?

No, my Mum had them in every room in the house, she had to get the ceiling skimmed and drugs from the gp for tennis elbow, just doing downstairs.

thanks for your Horrible Ceiling Tales, all

they have made me feel better-yet-worse

I am going to take the lazy way out and get the ceilings skimmed, then paint them myself

it's either that, or Not Looking Up for the next ten years

Frenchfancy - am in MOD accommodation abroad, so am effectively subletting from the MOD who rent from the l/l. We can't do a thing to the structure/decoration of the house.

Wouldn't gloss paint on the ceiling be a fire hazard? i.e. if there was a fire the gloss paint would burn more easily and spread it more quickly? Polystyrene tiles would be a nightmare in that respect.

We had gloss on the polystyrene coving it was sort of bright sky blue, the walls were garish lime green, then blue gloss skirting boards.

Get a Man in.

We viewed a house once that had been artexed to the max; all walls and ceilings with that pointy jaggedy spiky artex that takes your skin off if you brush against it. It was like being in a cave.

(We didn't buy it.)

Ceiling Top Trump alert:

We had varnished pine tongue and groove on our kitchen ceiling, underneath that polystyrene tiles, underneath those holes and black bits from leaks from the bathroom above.

So there!

I think we may have bought that house Sidge, or one very similar. Ours had spiky render on the outside too - I lost count of the number of times I took the skin off my knuckles

It also had dark green gloss on the walls of the stair well (why?????) Like Jack we took the easy option and had them skimmed. House is now 99% artex and spiky render-free. Bliss!