DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

our new home (Victorian) has a grim 1970s kitchen with a very low ceiling covered (badly) in painted textured wallpaper. in fact, every room in the house has a textured papered ceiling!! since we have a limited budget, does anyone have any ideas on how we can redecorate and modernise the ceilings without having every room replastered? The kitchen is the room most urgently in need of attention; maybe we can find a solution for that and then save up before doing the other rooms.......?

thanks

First - are you sure it's painted textured paper and not artex. Wretched stuff was very popular in the 70s.

In ascending order of cost:

If Paper

1. Wash down well with sugar soap to clear off old grime / dirt etc and paint with 2 coats Vinyl matt.

2. Strip paper back to ceiling. If plaster basically OK then wash off all vestiges of old paste, fill as necessary and paint as before

3. As 2 but repaper with modern paper to your choice before painting.

If Artex

1. As 1. for paper.

2. Strip off all Artex then as 2 for paper.

3. Have Artex skimmed over by a plasterer (not a DIY job frankly) then paint.

4 As 3. for Artex but paper before painting.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Sorry forgot to add - if it's 70s Artex then it's probably got asbestos in it. Stripping is doable but I'd suggest you avoid it.

Cheers

See our project on stripping wallpaper and the other one on removing artex. Your post reads as though you might be planning to plaster over the textured paper....DONT. See also our project on top coat or skim plastering.

baton out ceiling (create false ceiling) cover with t&g cladding (mdf or wood ) paint !! job done. best wishes HN.

We've just got a great product for dealing with horrible textured ceiling in our shop:

https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/DIY-superst ... mover.html

The nice thing about this is that it is eco and human friendly - there are no nasty chemicals, yet is still does a great job.