My first knockdown

16 years ago

I was really nervous about the ceiling in a bedroom in a house we are renovating. Two walls were taken down and the ceiling had some old swirled texture, plaster, and some fresh drywall.

Here's a pic of the old ceiling texture.

I started by using watered down drywall mud and a texture brush and tamped it on the ceiling and got this:

Then I played with it a little and used my wide drywall knife to knock it down. What do you think?

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Comments (7)

paintguy22
16 years ago
It looks outstanding. I live in the land of smooth drywall so even I don't know how to do that.
barbcollins
Original Author
16 years ago
"It looks outstanding. I live in the land of smooth drywall so even I don't know how to do that."

Ha ha! I live in the land of "how in the heck am I going to fix that!" so I have to get creative.
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sierraeast
16 years ago
I like that a whole lot better than sprayed, knock down texturing that is used in millions of tract homes these days. Your's comes closer to a hand skip trowled old world finish. It looks great and original. Nice work!
graywings123
16 years ago
I'm not a fan of texture on walls but that is amazing! And on the ceiling no less! I have a hard enough time just getting a coat of paint on a ceiling.
User
16 years ago
Nice, and it covers many many imperfections.

The trick is to keep the angle of the blade consistent, and wipe the blade frequently with a damp rag to prevent dry particles from leaving gouges in your texture.

... and don't drag your knuckles in the fresh mud.
barbcollins
Original Author
16 years ago
"... and don't drag your knuckles in the fresh mud."

Yep, did that a couple times too!

A few other things I learned.
1. Keep the texture brush within reach when on a ladder step stool, so if you knock down too much you can fix it right away.
2. I found the knockdown was a little easier if I let the compound set up for about 10-15 minutes. I started out in a small area, then went ahead a tamped the rest of the ceiling first, then came back to knock it down.

I can't believe how easy and quick this was. I have another room with a chimney covered in lathe & plaster. I might try that on the chimney to improve the surface.
sierraeast
16 years ago
It's like most hand applied projects, it just takes practice to get a consistent technique. You want to make sure that you know how much water was used when thinning, (remember your mix), and it helps to stay with the same brand of mud as some are more coarse than others and mix a little different. When using drywall compound, always use joint compound and never topping as joint has adhesives in it that bond better ,(the reason you use it for embedding tape on drywall seams).