How was your day? I spent 7 hours of my day off work up a ladder in the bathroom tackling the Artex 👷‍♂️🥴 - ThreadSky

threadinburgh.scot • 48 days ago

How was your day? I spent 7 hours of my day off work up a ladder in the bathroom tackling the Artex 👷‍♂️🥴

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calderwook.bsky.social•48 days ago

We had some success on the more stubborn bits that the steamer wasn't working on by scoring and spraying with wallpaper remover solution and leaving it soak in.

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Some of it peeled off in big chunks in my fingers or with the scraper where it had already ceased to adhere. Some of it came off pleasantly in big sheets with the steamer where there is old distemper beneath the paint layers and plaster

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Where there was no distemper (an old type of chalky paint that can be washed off) beneath, or the paint was on plaster repairs, the artex peeled away less eaisly and left the layers of beige and avocado gloss and eggshell paint behind

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

I hadn't intended to strip the wallpaper, but there was so much steam in the small bathroom from the stripper that it just started falling off on its own accord. This is largely because it was papered directly onto a different shade of olivey-green gloss paint so wasn't really adhered properly

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Most of the plaster is in pretty good condition, the cracks are mostly very old and beneath all the paint layers, and will be fine with a bit of scrim reinforcement. Some of the repairs made a right mess of the curved profile of the coomb but will be salvageable even with my basic plastering skills

kirstynicol.bsky.social•48 days ago

Come and do our place once you're finished....?

aardgoose.info•48 days ago

Evil stuff - artex.

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Fortunately because the layers beneath were distemper and gloss it didn't have much to adhere to so was relatively easy to persuade off. But it's all relative and it was still a horrible task!

aardgoose.info•48 days ago

I knew a pub in south Wales where every wall had a different and bold atrex pattern on it. I expect it is still there even if the building isn't.

alanf.bsky.social•48 days ago

I once stripped a room in which the original 1934 layer of paper had been varnished.
One postage stamp sized piece at a time.
Bastards.

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Oh yes found the varnished wallpaper in our Victorian flat. Fortunately on top of distemper so didn't have too much to adhere to and came off with warm water and scraping

alanf.bsky.social•48 days ago

Ah yes, I was almost pleased about the areas where the plaster just fell off the wall.
Happy days.

soulsubbo.bsky.social•48 days ago

Coat it with Gaurdz by Zinsser. It'll help seal and stabilise the surface no matter what you're doing next to it.

Hope you wore a mask 👍🏻

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Thanks, will look into that. Plan is to reskim the ceiling and coombs before painting, and repaint the walls. Not decided if I need to remove all that avocado gloss paint from them, it's 95% intact and on an exceptionally flat surface.

Fortunately I have a stock of unopened N95 Covid masks leftover

soulsubbo.bsky.social•48 days ago

I think I meant to post something more like this.
Are you doing it yourself?

https://www.screwfix.com/p/feb-febond-blue-grit-high-performance-plasterers-grip-coat-bonding-agent-blue-5ltr/762kk

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Yeah will give it a bash as done some wall skimming in the past without disastrous consequences and it's quite a small space and pretty decent surface asides a few cracks. If I *#@! it up I'll admit defeat and get someone in who knows what they are doing 🥴

soulsubbo.bsky.social•48 days ago

It may need a grip primer maybe on top of the properly prepped surfaces.
There's a brush or roller on stuff with a grit in it.
Maybe look into that.
I wouldn't be removing paint TBH. If you can go over do that. Don't know what you're digging into.

Zinsser products are really good IMO.

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Yeah I felt if it ain't falling off the walls and it's still there in the bathroom environment after say 40 or more years it's probably pretty well adhered! Fortunately it made getting the wallpaper off a doddle. The tiling around the bath is also laid over gloss! That's why they are falling off too

soulsubbo.bsky.social•48 days ago

https://greenshoppaints.co.uk/collections/plaster-primer

imaged.bsky.social•48 days ago

Impressive. I got totally soaked on the way to the national library then spent five hours there thinking about Chekhov.

keithjebb.bsky.social•48 days ago

Can’t be done. Artex will form as distinct an archeological stratum as dust from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

maggieholland.bsky.social•48 days ago

Yikes! Is this the same bathroom that you re-plumbed some years ago?

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Oh no got a whole new bathroom to tackle! Hopefully a lot less stuff needing done this time and don't have to go back to the bricks and replace the floor and ceiling!

maggieholland.bsky.social•48 days ago

Oh, excellent - I remember you getting back to the bricks, and uncovering all sorts of ancient plumbing and electrical bodges. I suppose that was on The Other Platform, of which we no longer speak......

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Yes another platform and another house ago!

malcolmburtt.bsky.social•48 days ago

I hope that wasn't an asbestos artex. We had ours tested and it was, so renovations went very "carefully" at that point.

peigibheag.bsky.social•48 days ago

Heat gun is good.

threadinburgh.scot•48 days ago

Yeah but horrible to use on a ceiling where your face has to be up close to it. The steamer was marginally less like purgatory, but not much

peigibheag.bsky.social•48 days ago

My dad scraped a ceiling and got facial excema from the dust that never got properly fixed 😞

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