Artex removal from ceilings

[nyctoedi]

Hello...every ceiling in our house has been covered in a variety of horrendous artex patterns which I am dying to be rid of. It looks as though the artex has been spread over a lining paper of sorts and some sort of heavy paint over it (not exactly gloss...but not matt either). Having done a bit of experimental scraping, it looks as though it should come off relatively easily and low and behold, the plaster underneath looks to be in quite good shape (well for the 3 square inches I played with anyway). One plasterer advised to plaster right over it. The next said that was crazy as would bring the whole ceiling down due to wallpaper lining coming away and he said to board over and plaster. Both said to strip off would be horrendous and should avoid.

We had tested for asbestos which fortunately came back clear. Has anyone attempted to strip it off before? Was it horrendous? Should we just shove some board on it? I don't really want to lower the ceilings any further....

We had ours scraped (just to get the stipples off) then skimmed over. If you plasterboard over you will have to remove and replace your coving so its a bigger job. But (as far as I know), our artex isn't attached to lining paper, so we didn't have quite the same problem.

We had dreadful ceilings too - the living room looked like an upside down meringue. Our plasterer just scraped off all the pointy bits, nailed back/repaired any loose boards, sealed, then skimmed it. It looks brilliant, and really wasn't expensive.

DM tried to do the same, but ran into problems because her artex was "unstable" and reacted badly to be going skimmed. She ended up having to have the whole lot pulled down and re-done.

"being" skimmed.

All of my ceilings look like overlapped vinyl records. I quite like it - I can spend a lot time working out where the semicircles start and end (pathetic).

Yep, our whole house is artexed, except for the kitchen which has been renovated anyway. A friend of mine had his whole house done, three bed semi, for about £900. I think they just sanded it smooth and skimmed over it. Made a hell of a mess apparently. White dust everywhere for weeks. I wish I could have mine done.

We stripped artex off in our old house that had been done over wallpaper (by the previous owner...). Not on ceilings but on the walls it was an OK job. Bit messy, lots of elbow grease and a load of mess to clear up afterwards. Took us days to do.

We used scrapers and lots of water to soften it. I wish we had worn dust masks but you live and learn.

Give it a go, if it doesn't work out you have a plan B to call a plasterer.

Thanks all....will give it a go if I can summon up the strength. Is definitely one of those jobs that is tough to start because you know it's going to be a nightmare!