Chip paper ceiling

ChewyLuey

Hi All

My house has chip wallpaper on all the ceilings. (I think thats what its called) Think it was done years ago and doesn't look great.
Should this come off easily enough or does anyone have experience of this on ceilings ? (I don't want to start taking strips of it off to check just yet!!)

Thanks

jos28

We had it on our landing ceiling, parts of it were easy to remove, but other sections involved a wallpaper stripper. It took a while but was worth it in the long run.

DublinDilbert

Steam it off.... a basic steamer in argos will cost €20 or so.... well worth it...

Just becarful when using the steamer overhead, as some steam does tend to condense in the steaming head as very hot water, so careful not go get hit with that dripping..

Wertz

If it's been painted then it can be very difficult to take off, especially if it's been painted with a glossy/eggshell finish. You'll need a scoring tool and probably a steamer...but even with those, painted woodchip can be very trying.

Bear in mind that no-one puts woodchip on a ceiling without having good reason...usually it's to hide unsightly bad plasterwork and uneveness.
When you remove it you'll be faced with what the previous decorator was trying to hide.

Juwwi

isit an old house?
it could of been put up to cover bad ceilings.

ChewyLuey

Its a 70s bungalow. Thanks for the info. I'm thinking I might just re-paint the wallpaper !!

jos28

I have heard of someone who lightly sanded woodchip with an electrical sander to remove the wood chips, then you could use something like Polycell's
Crack free ceiling paint
http://www.polycell.co.uk/products/polycell_crack-free_ceilings.jsp

Blackjack

Be careful using a steamer on Plaster, leave it on too long, and more than the Wallpaper will be coming away....

Johnnyr

I bought a house last year with the woodchip paper on all the ceilings. The house was built in 1979/1980. The paper was put on the ceiling as the ceiling slabs had started to drop at the joins.
It looked terrible, so I wanted it gone. The paper had also been painted over the years, so it was difficult to get steam to perforate the paper. I tried using a scoring tool, put it wasn't much use. In the end, I got a heavy duty stanley scrapper, which removed the first layer of the paper and chips. Then using a paint roller I applied water and wallpaper remover to the remaing layer of paper. Its tough going as your working over your head all the time. I bought a small scaffold set in Lidl for €90 which provided a sfe platform for working. Also, very hard to avoid digging into skim coat and slabs.
As the slabs were too loose in places, I then put extra bridges in between the joists above the ceiling and screwed up any loose slabs. As there were many marks in the ceiling at this stage I got the ceiling reskimmed.
Bit of an ordeal but well worth it in the end.

Blackjack

Johnnyr wrote: »

I bought a house last year with the woodchip paper on all the ceilings. The house was built in 1979/1980. The paper was put on the ceiling as the ceiling slabs had started to drop at the joins.
It looked terrible, so I wanted it gone. The paper had also been painted over the years, so it was difficult to get steam to perforate the paper. I tried using a scoring tool, put it wasn't much use. In the end, I got a heavy duty stanley scrapper, which removed the first layer of the paper and chips. Then using a paint roller I applied water and wallpaper remover to the remaing layer of paper. Its tough going as your working over your head all the time. I bought a small scaffold set in Lidl for €90 which provided a sfe platform for working. Also, very hard to avoid digging into skim coat and slabs.
As the slabs were too loose in places, I then put extra bridges in between the joists above the ceiling and screwed up any loose slabs. As there were many marks in the ceiling at this stage I got the ceiling reskimmed.
Bit of an ordeal but well worth it in the end.

What was the damage (financial!) to get the ceiling skimmed?.

Just interested to get rough pricing on such a job.

Johnnyr

I couldn't say exactly, as the same fella did a lot of other work for me and the price covered the whole lot.