A modern (mid-90's) 3-bed house on an estate, with a "cottage" theme: low ceilings, bare wood doors and Artex on every surface except the floors. Surprised the loo seat wasn't done.

Any views on what it is likely to have been applied to (plasterboard? Some other board?) and whether it can be removed feasibly, without just sanding down and skimming?

Especially dreading the ceilings...

Thanks!

Mid nineties house? Almost certainly the ceilings will be plasterboard with a thin skim of plaster, then the artex.

A sod to get off by all accounts, we haven't tried on our ceilings, but I have heard that steaming it will help.

We just wondered why they would bother using plasterboard if they knew they were going to Artex and possibly use a thinner board. But I guess regs would dictate minimum materials.

Use a wallpaper scraper to scrape off the worst of the pointy bits and leave a level-ish surface to then skim with plaster.

For choice I'd much rather not have to reskim as the rooms aren't exactly massive. I think the "3rd bedroom" might actually disappear...

They use plasterboard directly onto the joists then a thin skim of plaster. Artex alone would probably not cover the joins between panels and dents from the fixing screws.

It's much less labour intensive than nailing laths to the joists and plastering over as was the traditional way of making ceilings.

It comes off quite easily with a decent steamer,it's hot messy work tough.

Thanks all. I've seen various products advertised, which I'm inclined to try out, as well as the steamer approach. There's a lot of it, so hopefully it isn't too desperately dreary.

steamer is your way ahead

not sand or scrape if you knew what the A in artex stood for

Asbestos Reinforced TEXtured coating

Thanks. Apparently, the Artex used in this development is asbestos-free.

1) the artex is asbestos free
2) of course I love you
3) the cheque is in the post

That's good news

You could hire a steam stripper

Little tip for you ...... When you start shut yourself in the room you are striping and make the room like a sauna ...... The wetter you get it the easier it will be to get off

Quite often once you get behind it with your scrapper it's enough for it to start to fall off

Depending on the sub surface!

If it's on plaster then you stand a chance of steaming it off.

If directly onto plasterboard then you could be into a world of pain when trying to remove it as you may end up removing the plasterboard 1st layer also.

I presume it's your rented house Jim ? So tread carefully

As a professional I would scrap of the high points of a sound Artex finish then prepare it with a 2 coat pva primer and then apply a perfect skim finish.

But that's the professional way!

Joe, as it happens it's not the rented place, so we can f*** it up without fear! I did wonder about taking off the top layer of paper on plasterboard, but I think we will practice on the small room before deciding whether to go for a skim. It's always an option, but I'd rather do it ourselves if possible...

Jim, I would not try and remove it as you will create a lot of damage and mess, just skim over it and then paint.

My experience with our bathroom was that it took minutes to remove the whole ceiling. Then new plasterboard, not very expensive, and then get someone of check a trade to skim it. Then it's gone for good and running cable for new lights etc is a breeze.

I managed to remove a large chunk of my bedroom celing the other day when I put my foot/leg through from the loft

Relatively easy to replace. I now have the problem of replacing the artex - haven't got time to remove replaster.....

Thanks for the tips. I'm tempted to see if removing the ceilings is an option, but there's a fair few square metres. Then there's the walls...!

It's easy enough to remove the whole plasterboard ceiling/wall if you don't care about re-using it (and your attempts to remove the artex may well remove some of the plasterboard anyway), but some council dumps will not accept plasterboard so I'm not sure where you'r supposed to dump it?

For ceilings, if it's a large area, plasterboard is heavy and will bend a little under its own weight: it may not be a 1 person job to replace since you need 2 or more hands to hold it up whilst screwing it to the joists.

If you want to run cables for lights etc., it's probably better to run them before fixing the plasterboard. Run loops of cable down where the light fitting will go, then with the new plasterboard on, cut a hole for your light fitting and reach up to pull the loop through - works a treat for downlighters but a loop-in ceiling rose might be more tricky if you only want to make a small hole for the cable.

But if you put up new plasterboard, it will still need to be skimmed anyway, so what's the difference between skimming the existing ceiling over the top of the (pointy bits removed) artexed ceiling? (Except perhaps a thicker skim, or 2 goes at it maybe?)

I've done a fair bit of plaster-boarding in the past, including ceilings (using deadmen, which is a bundle of laughs), so I know what I'd be in for.

Essentially, if Artex is not too much worse to strip than wallpaper, that's the route we'll take. If it's a world of pain, we may take the scrape/sand/skim route.

Jim, have you looked at a UK product called 'X-Tex' ?

They say 2 men could strip an entire ceiling in an hour using the product. Looks like it just softens the plaster to allow for it to be scraped off with wallpaper scapers.

here you go

Thanks, Jim, that was one of the products I've been looking at. I was hoping someone here would say "It's a piece of cake with X-Tex"...!

Can you not just learn to love it Jim. Two or three gallons of emulsion job done!

Yes, leave it long enough and I'm sure it will be back in fashion, like flared trousers and platform shoes...

For the ceilings you could just board over the top of the existing one. A lot less mess.

We found out that had been done in our fairly new but used house when we went to radically decorate 20 years after moved in, the lounge ceiling was slightly lower than the adjoining dining room ceiling since the lounge had two layers of plasterboard, the lower one put on to cover some some of mess that was made before...but if we had skimmed over the artexed second layer, the decorator thought the whole lot might come down due to the weight, so the lower layer was removed before skimming.

And I assume that along with the artex, you have coving as well Jim?

Looking at this house, Dave, I don't think it's undergone any decoration other than in the kitchen since it was built - it's the original style of Artex and it's minging! Oddly, there isn't coving; in fact there are quite a few visible cracks between walls and wall/ceiling panel joints. I haven't looked too closely yet, but it looks like someone may have used sealant on some of the joints.
I think we'll test out a few stripping techniques in the tiny third bedroom and then decide whether to carry on or call in an expert plasterer. We can do the scraping/sanding and bonding.

So now the ceilings are sorted, what are your plans for the avocado bathroom?

Avocado? I said 90's, not 70's! Or did you mean we should install one ironically?