HOW TO BEAT ARTEX CEILINGS WITHOUT CALLING A PLASTERER

Listen, I really, really am not a fan of Artex ceilings, so on the whole, in the new house, I got off not too badly. The living room and hallway (upstairs and downstairs) are the only spaces inflicted with it, which felt like a manageable job. I've never had to take it out before and I thought I could sand it back, but thankfully I gave it a cautionary google first and turns out it's probably got asbestos in it. 

On a Homebase trip for wall paint, I spotted this Polycell Smoothover product and, at £25 a piece for the tub and the tools to use it, it seemed like a worthwhile risk considering the £££ I'd been quoted on getting just the living room skimmed. 

Safe to say that whole tub went on about a quarter of one ceiling and I quickly realised that what I'd actually bought was just a really expensive tub of skimming plaster. However, the skimming tools for applying it were a different story. I've never actually tried to skim a ceiling, but legend has it that it's a difficult job getting a good finish. But this smooth roller and smoothing tool seemed to do the job without too much trouble. 

Given that I could get about 5 times the amount of skimming plaster for £15 cheaper, I decided to persevere. First up, you apply the plaster with the roller, then you smooth it out. As I was working on top of Artex, you can see it needed a good few coats to build up enough layers so that it was completely hidden. 

Once the Artex was completely covered, the ceiling needed to be sanded to smooth it out. Real messy. Everything had to be taken out, sofa and table covered and I even went full Dexter-murder-room-style with plastic dust sheets to try stop the dust escaping into the other rooms. 

Our Artex wasn't that bad. It didn't have too huge peaks, but it was still a serious workout. It worked and we've got nice flat ceilings ready to put some coving up, but if you're thinking of giving it a go yourself, don't underestimate the work that goes into it. However, it did save a nice chunk of money, so I'll undoubtedly give the hallway a go once I figure out how to balance over the staircase.. Any ideas? 

Let me know if you'd like to see a Youtube video of this technique in the comments!