Plastering over artex

catwoman

We have horrible artex on our lounge/dining room ceiling and want to know if it can be plastered over so its a smooth finish and if so will it be expensive?

covbaldy

Depends on what sort of Artex you have. Is it the swirly plastery type stuff or the very rough textured stuff?

I would say that both can be plastered over but you may need to do some smoothing over first, either by scrapping away or by sanding. Dependant on the texture.

Plaster prices vary depending on where you are - a good plasterer shouldn't take much longer than a 1/2 day to do a ceiling. Depends on size. Could be anything from £150 and upwards. Materials, labour etc...

bluekp

We've just had our whole house replastered (3 bed-Kent) and it cost us £3k.

On areas with rough adhesive/artex, we scraped the bulk of the rough areas off and they could then just be skimmed over (which is substantially cheaper than replastering I understand)

Hope this helps

Poppy9

Oh I remember when Artex was so trendy. We spent a fortune having our downstairs ceiling artexed with the comb effect. Glad I've now moved house!!

My parents had artex on their walls in their hall, stairs and landing. It was the rough, bark effect. They sanded theirs down and then used blown vinyl over it. It covered it fine. Hell of a mess though sanding down the artex.

catwoman

Its just the rough bumpy looking kind no pattern to it! I hate it!!!

Jeannine

I had my medium sized lounge ceiling done by a local plasterer who put several layers of plaster on top. He did a fantastic job and charged just over £100 - well worth every penny as it was the BIG, swirly Artex. It looks great now! :j

vansboy

Our ceilings were covered in the rough Artex finish, but as they were lath/plaster (old house), couldn't be skimmed over - the whole lot would have come down.

We had new plasterboard fitted over it & also had the walls re-plastered, were it was really bad & the rest skimmed.

Around £450/room. I'll post the plasterers details, if you're nearby - Herts/Beds & surrounding.

VB

SamC_4

If it was applied more than 15 years ago the Artex may contain some white asbestos, and while this isn't as dangerous as other types of asbestos it probably isn't a good idea to sand it. You can get Artex remover called X-Tex which will soften it so you can strip it off (haven't tried it).

chaddy_2

The best way is to get a scraper and 'knock' back the worst of the bumps. then PVA and skim.
If you do go down the route of removing(very messy) you can use a wallpaper steamer this softens the artex and then it scrapes off easily.

goldentouch

SamC wrote:

If it was applied more than 15 years ago the Artex may contain some white asbestos, and while this isn't as dangerous as other types of asbestos it probably isn't a good idea to sand it. You can get Artex remover called X-Tex which will soften it so you can strip it off (haven't tried it).

Very true.

We had ours plastered over. Cost about £400. DD slammed door and one wall fell off :eek:

After that we peeled the rest off like an egg shell and did it the hard way using the product quoted above.

Just hoping now we weren't all exposed to toxins along the way.

scoot1on1

We had same problem. Plasterer finished plastering all over our artex, I finished applying the watered down paint a few days later and the whole lot fell down on top of me. The problem was that the old occupants had artexed over paper so the plaster hadn't dried out fully. He used a different kind of plaster next time, he bonded it first also. Cost £150 for a double lounge room.