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A little over 12 years ago I took down wallpaper on one long wall in our home. When it came down, so did some of the texture on the wall. At that time I was close to 9 months pregnant and a friend of mine dabbed on some texture. Even though I certainly appreciated the effort, it was a horrible job. It has been painted over once and now we are going to paint it again. The problem is...this time I plan to use a deep maroon color of paint and I know it will show every imperfection.
OK...now a friend of mine loaned DH a machine to put texture on the wall and a knock-down tool. She said we would have to sand the wall down before we applied the new texture. My question is...how much sanding must be done? Do we have to sand all the way to the sheetrock? I'm assuming this sanding process will enable the texture to stick to the wall? I'm very dense when it comes to this and believe me, my DH isn't much smarter...but he's all heart and will give anything a try.
He purchased a sander and has been at it all day. Many places seem to be difficult to sand. Any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Oh wow I feel for your dilemma. For us textured walls have seemed a curse. I wanted to do a baby mural and we had to putty over the texture, do tons of sanding, prime, paint etc to get the wall "normal." We've only re-textured a small area and DH did a perfect match buying one of those touch-up texture spray cans from HD. I think you are on the right track. I would think sanding MOST of the texture would be just fine.
Once your texture has been painted or finished, sanding and repairing the texture is next to impossible. The paint really gums up your sand paper. You would probably be best off using new sheetrock. You can purchase 1/4" gypsum wall board that is applied over your current wall. Re-tape it, paint it, and you have a smooth, brand new wall...no more texture problems.
For the smoothest wall, you can hire a drywall contractor to apply a plaster top coat. This option needs to be done by someone with experience. It would make a very difficult do-it-yourself project.
Our 2400 sq. ft. house has a heavy stucco texture on every single wall AND every single ceiling in every room. Just repainting is a nightmare, much less trying to remove it. People need to think very carefully before putting texture on walls. Down the road it can seriously affect the resale value of a house.
Yeah beginning to be as nuisance as wallpaper! But it is common practice among new home builders to hide imperfections in taping and drywall.
I would not recommend changing out the whole drywall though. Wow, what a job that would be! Like I said, we successfully smoothed out with a pre-mixed mixture from HD, then just sanded that part so I could do a mural over it. No need to sand out the whole texture. We also successfully repaired a texture spot. The difficulty lies in matching the right texture.
Thank you all so much for your help. I will pass all of this along to DH and let him be the decision-maker! LOL Maybe that will keep the the innocent person here? haha!
This has certainly turned out to be much more of a job than either of us expected. It is on hold til next weekend now as DH will be working 12-14 hour days all week. Hopefully he'll have a good attitude when he starts again on Saturday. Yikes!!!
Brinda,
I've done alot of the texturing. You only need to sand down the spots of real negitivity.A light sand of a med sand paper over the rest.The secret is with which type machine you have,If it's a hopper attached to an air compressor or the texture machine that you fill up with joint compond. either way the secret is consistently inconsistent pattern of your spray. keep the wand or the hopper moving in a circluar motion and get a pattern started If it's a large splotch knock down or a small splotch knock down will very depending on the size tip(size of hole compound comes out)..bigger the tip larger the splotch...Let the compound set up a bit before using the knock down tool.A very lite touch just to knock down the tips of the splotch's.Sometimes you don't even need to use it.(depending on how soupy your compound is)You'll know if it to soupy if it runs when you spray it on the wall. It's better to have it to loose then to thick because to loose is easier to get out of the hopper and thicken up then the oppisite.It's best to go back the next day and see if there are any spots you need to just hit a little.Let it dry throughly and then prime.Make sure to prime the whole thing.Then when it's dry paint it. Make sure you clear out the room of every thing or make sure everything left in the room is covered with drops.It a real messy job and that stuff is hard to get off things once it hits them. Good luck
We had deep texture on some of the rooms at our house when we bought it. The rooms I redid I rented a sander(large rotary one with a vacuum) and went over it. It did not take it down to a flat surface so I filled the low areas in with joint compound and resanded. This came out OK, not 100% flat, but much better.
I just wanted to come back and say 'thanks' to all of you! It's all over now and I'm in love with the wall. We worked really hard getting the wall ready and DH took a deep breath and started! It all looks great and I don't think he would have had the nerve to do it if I hadn't printed all this out for him to read! Thank you so very much for all your input!!!!
LOL Don, I wouldn't say that. It does look good and we are both very pleased. And I have to say that this was one of the most stressful things we've ever tackled. We talked and worried about it for a couple of weeks before he finally got the nerve to do it. Man...I'm so happy it's over and it looks good!
We have more things to tackle here in the next couple of weeks...you might see me back over here asking more questions. DH spent 20 years in the Navy so he's mostly lived on base or rental property, so all of this is new to him. But it's something he likes to do...so that's a big plus.
