Best way to cover artex?

FreeBear

wallofbeans said:

• The house is a Victorian terrace, built in approximately 1900.

• There is one clear crack along the ceiling, going almost all the way across about a third of the way into the room.
  

If it is a long straight crack at 90° to a wall, chances are, you have plasterboard on the ceiling already. Cracks in a lath & lime plaster ceiling tend to be at angles and almost never in a straight line. Have a look in the loft to see if you can spot the paper backing of the plasterboard. Although, if the ceiling has already been overboarded, the best point to check would be where the light fitting is screwed up - Usually a big hole behind the rose, so easy to check.

wallofbeans

I'll get into the loft and have a look shortly. I can check behind the lighting fitting rose as well. In the meantime, the crack is a very straight line going almost all the way along the ceiling. although it doesn't seem to quite go all the way at either end. It's roughly 90cm from the wall.

The people who owned the house before me replaced windows and kitchen, but the people before that did more - taking out the fireplace in this bedroom for one - so perhaps ceiling was replaced at that point...

Here's a pic for reference:
https://imgur.com/LmRI58z

wallofbeans

Here's a photo behind the rose... does this help?

https://imgur.com/LrZ2Edh

stuart45

You need to take the screws out and drop it down.

wallofbeans

This is the ceiling on the end where the wardrobes were fitted. You can see the edge of the artex and where the fireplace was removed. Is that plasterboard? Does this solve anything?

https://imgur.com/qzZUQmB

wallofbeans

stuart45 said:

You need to take the screws out and drop it down.

The screws just go straight into plaster. What am I looking for if I remove it that much?

stuart45

If you take out the screws the fitting can be pulled down a bit. You can then see a section of the ceiling. It could be lath and plaster. Or plasterboard and plaster skim. Or lath and plaster, then overboarded.

FreeBear

wallofbeans said:

This is the ceiling on the end where the wardrobes were fitted. You can see the edge of the artex and where the fireplace was removed. Is that plasterboard? Does this solve anything?

https://imgur.com/qzZUQmB

Nice straight line about 1200mm from either wall, plus the hint in the image above - Certainly looks like plasterboard & gypsum (Looks too rough for Multifinsh, perhaps base coat..) skim. You should be fine slapping another skim coat over the top without having to put more plasterboard on top.

Bendy_House

wallofbeans said:

Here's a pic for reference:
https://imgur.com/LmRI58z

My eyes! MY EYES!!

wallofbeans

Bendy_House said:

wallofbeans said:

Here's a pic for reference:
https://imgur.com/LmRI58z

My eyes! MY EYES!!

Tell me about it. I've been living with this!