New House Series - Media Room Pt 1 - Walls pt 2
Hey Reader!
We are back at it with another edition of the ongoing and exciting saga, "JoshPrime vs. Textured Walls." When I started telling people that I planned to de-texture my walls, the most common response was "your walls are textured? I hadn't noticed."
After I internally seethed with rage at other people's lack of ability to see the thing that causes me so much sleepless nights, I explained that my walls were indeed textured. I then tried my best not to get into a tirade about how much I hate textured walls, and then began explaining the process. I will fully own than "my best" frequently meant a rant of 10 minutes or less.
The next thing that people would say is, "that is way too much work you should just live with the texture." Reader, it is like the people around me don't know me at all. My cousin warned I would rue the day I started this project. My parents explained that it is an art form and that I could become obsessed with perfection. I am here to say, that despite entering week 3 of what I hoped to be a 2 week process, I am still pressing forward on my plan with not a rue in sight.
Since sanding was a bit too messy and slow, we are trying skim coating on for size and it is absolutely the preferably method. Skim coating is applying a thin layer of plaster over the walls to fill in all the texture and create a smooth finish. It takes about three coats to get to an almost perfect wall. Those in the writing world will say that the word "perfect" in the last sentence is a form of foreshadowing. I know that technically I am slightly shrinking the rooms, but its very small, and I wasn't using those little spaces between the texture bits anyway.
I watched a bunch of good tutorials to see how to do this. Jordan Jones from Bauen has a great one. I used a lot of tips from Paul Peck's tutorial too. They both use a really watered down plaster mix on a paint roller. We tried that and had a really hard time getting it to work, we wound up doing it all by hand, which is certainly more time consuming.
The walls, trim, doors, and every other surface that isn't carpet in this house is painted the same beige color. The wet plaster happens to be the exact same color which made for fun attempts to not miss spots. Fortunately, the plaster dries white so it is super evident when you miss a spot. After three coats the walls looked like a bit of a polka dotted mess.
Paul Peck's tutorial ends with circling problem areas for touch up work. I looked at my walls and thought it would be impossible to see problem areas with all these polka dots. For the record, the walls were smooth, its just that the original plaster that created the texture was still showing through creating those spots. I had the bright idea that maybe I should prime the walls. Everything would be one color and then I would easily see the problem areas.
Priming is fun and I knew there would still need to be some light sanding but I was unprepared for how strong this primer is. They should use this stuff to seal up leaks in ships. I had to use my heaviest grit sandpaper to even make a dent, and in doing so ruined all the surrounding area, as well as my small "problem."
That just meant it was going to take a little more work to get it all smooth. Note to self, don't prime next time (until the end of course). I put Kirk in charge of the circling step since he is much more oriented around details than I am. I am great at covering a huge wall but the small details of perfect smoothness are not my strongest suit. He set to work on circling things. In the video, Paul Peck circles maybe 5 or 6 areas, hits them with a quick touch of joint compound and a quick cross fade later the wall is perfect.
Of course, that's a web tutorial put on by an expert. You can't throw a copyright free beat and a cross fade over real life. My wall looked like a little kid was about to get in SO much trouble. If you can't see in that picture, there are a lot of circles. He used his cell phone light at different angles to see where shadows were being cast. I know that Kirk is a tiny little bit more of a perfectionist than I am, but I also know that I want smooth walls so circle away! My pencil sharpener is in a box unpacked somewhere and so we have gone through 4 pencils circling.
The last steps will be do let all the spots of plaster dry again, sand it down and possibly go in again and do some circling. My hope is that for the rest of the house this process will be faster due to 1. skill improvement and 2. not priming the walls until it is totally done.
Until that happens though, I am going to sit here and continue to not rue anything at all.
Until next time,
JoshPrime
We are back at it with another edition of the ongoing and exciting saga, "JoshPrime vs. Textured Walls." When I started telling people that I planned to de-texture my walls, the most common response was "your walls are textured? I hadn't noticed."
After I internally seethed with rage at other people's lack of ability to see the thing that causes me so much sleepless nights, I explained that my walls were indeed textured. I then tried my best not to get into a tirade about how much I hate textured walls, and then began explaining the process. I will fully own than "my best" frequently meant a rant of 10 minutes or less.
The next thing that people would say is, "that is way too much work you should just live with the texture." Reader, it is like the people around me don't know me at all. My cousin warned I would rue the day I started this project. My parents explained that it is an art form and that I could become obsessed with perfection. I am here to say, that despite entering week 3 of what I hoped to be a 2 week process, I am still pressing forward on my plan with not a rue in sight.
Since sanding was a bit too messy and slow, we are trying skim coating on for size and it is absolutely the preferably method. Skim coating is applying a thin layer of plaster over the walls to fill in all the texture and create a smooth finish. It takes about three coats to get to an almost perfect wall. Those in the writing world will say that the word "perfect" in the last sentence is a form of foreshadowing. I know that technically I am slightly shrinking the rooms, but its very small, and I wasn't using those little spaces between the texture bits anyway.I watched a bunch of good tutorials to see how to do this. Jordan Jones from Bauen has a great one. I used a lot of tips from Paul Peck's tutorial too. They both use a really watered down plaster mix on a paint roller. We tried that and had a really hard time getting it to work, we wound up doing it all by hand, which is certainly more time consuming.
The walls, trim, doors, and every other surface that isn't carpet in this house is painted the same beige color. The wet plaster happens to be the exact same color which made for fun attempts to not miss spots. Fortunately, the plaster dries white so it is super evident when you miss a spot. After three coats the walls looked like a bit of a polka dotted mess.Paul Peck's tutorial ends with circling problem areas for touch up work. I looked at my walls and thought it would be impossible to see problem areas with all these polka dots. For the record, the walls were smooth, its just that the original plaster that created the texture was still showing through creating those spots. I had the bright idea that maybe I should prime the walls. Everything would be one color and then I would easily see the problem areas.
That just meant it was going to take a little more work to get it all smooth. Note to self, don't prime next time (until the end of course). I put Kirk in charge of the circling step since he is much more oriented around details than I am. I am great at covering a huge wall but the small details of perfect smoothness are not my strongest suit. He set to work on circling things. In the video, Paul Peck circles maybe 5 or 6 areas, hits them with a quick touch of joint compound and a quick cross fade later the wall is perfect.
The last steps will be do let all the spots of plaster dry again, sand it down and possibly go in again and do some circling. My hope is that for the rest of the house this process will be faster due to 1. skill improvement and 2. not priming the walls until it is totally done.
Until that happens though, I am going to sit here and continue to not rue anything at all.
Until next time,
JoshPrime
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