Drywall texture time... need some advice

[kyle242gt]

Hi all -

Not garage related, except that this is a bit of a practice run for finishing the inside of my shop once it's complete.

I'm remodeling a bathroom, and am at the point of finishing the drywall for paint. I've done a couple of skim coats, and screen-sanded smooth.

It's almost perfectly smooth - tempted to swipe it down with a damp sponge and let it be.

However, there's a few issues -
1) there are two partial walls with old drywall, it has a very fine orange peel or sand texture (maybe just from several coats of paint, or maybe textured skim coats)
2)the ceiling is mostly original, but I had to patch three areas, and while it's pretty smooth, it's not perfect, I have a feeling flaws will jump out at me.
3) there are a few cracks in corners, tiny voids in the tape lines, places I've sanded down to paper, etc that I'm tired of chasing.

Good ole Harbor Freight has a cheapie compressor for $40, and a mud gun for $20. I may be able to borrow my contractor's small compressor after-hours too, now that I think about it (my 220V 30gal is too unwieldy).

I've done a fair amount of skip trowel work, using a creatively cut stencil of masonite. Works fine for smallish areas, but I think trying to do a large bathroom would probably kill me.

I've also read of rolling it on.

Carries over to the garage; don't think I want to try to smoothcoat 12' walls... though being all new construction, issues 1 and 2 above wouldn't matter.

Typical, there's too many ways to skin this cat.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[csp]

All that background and no ideas of what you're thinking......

A mud gun and compressor would make it quick and easy to add an orange peel texture which wouldn't be hard to blend in/add to the existing. Knock-down is slightly more work and needs a knock down knife (inexpensive).

 

[Falcon67]

Amateur here thinks "two different things". What I did on the old house to match the "texture" in the bedroom was to thin the drywall mud down some and roll it on with a really coarse roller. You could modify that with a smaller nap roller for a bathroom, maybe use a thick nap on the ceiling and thinner on the walls. For 12' walls - oy. Blow or no. My shop will get whatever nap the paint roller puts on there.

 

[kyle242gt]

All that background and no ideas of what you're thinking......

you and me both, brother.

I'm thinking of the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to get a satisfactory finish coat.

Would my 9" taping knife not work for knockdown? I've used a 5" previously with good results.

Will orange peel hide the transition from old to new? It's "only" 100SF, so I was just going to texture the whole room.

 

[kyle242gt]

Amateur here thinks "two different things". What I did on the old house to match the "texture" in the bedroom was to thin the drywall mud down some and roll it on with a really coarse roller.

Was wondering about that too. Hadn't heard of rolling texture until today's research (such as it is). But...

For 12' walls - oy. Blow or no. My shop will get whatever nap the paint roller puts on there.

With the shop project up next, seems like a good time to get a texture gun and learn to use it.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[richtersrodz]

When you start shooting, don't under estimate the fumes.. I've textured my whole house,
when we reno'd. Every room, room by room, with new sheet rock. A couple of times I
forgot to open a window, and it can make you feel a little spacey.. I also pre-primed
the walls, before paint. Not sure if that really makes a difference, because I never tried
it without primer to see what happens.

Got my gun from HD, and already had the compressor. Only takes like 25lbs of pressure,
and has like 16 different settings on the gun. I practiced on some plywood first.. Then
you can just hose it off, or wipe it down, before it dries, once you get your pattern set.

 

[kyle242gt]

Thanks for that. Been leaving the windows open, and even then, having my face in a bucket of mud for a few hours does indeed getting a little foggy.

You do need to prime the mud/texture from what I've been told, it's too porous and will really **** in the paint.

 

[csp]

You probably could use a 9" taping knife, but how long would it take to do an entire wall and how even would it be?

If you shoot an entire wall with mud you stand the chance that one end will be too dry to knock down doing only 9" at a time.

I use a 24" wide, offset handle knife to keep the angle flat as possible and find that I have to move fairly quickly.

 

[thrifty bill]

Amateur here thinks "two different things". What I did on the old house to match the "texture" in the bedroom was to thin the drywall mud down some and roll it on with a really coarse roller. You could modify that with a smaller nap roller for a bathroom, maybe use a thick nap on the ceiling and thinner on the walls. For 12' walls - oy. Blow or no. My shop will get whatever nap the paint roller puts on there.

That's the technique I use. Whenever I can, I go smooth. But when I need to match the texture in my two 1934 homes, I start with joint compound, I water it down, add sand, mix it up really well, and apply with a heavy nap roller. I picked this up from a master plaster guy several years ago. With practice, I can quickly blend in holes and patches.

 

[treasureseeker]

you and me both, brother.

I'm thinking of the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to get a satisfactory finish coat.

Would my 9" taping knife not work for knockdown? I've used a 5" previously with good results.

Will orange peel hide the transition from old to new? It's "only" 100SF, so I was just going to texture the whole room.

When painting I have always just used a course paint roller to get the smooth refinished areas to match the old, then put the second coat on with a standard roller.

 

[kyle242gt]

Lots of great advice here, thanks gang!

going to try orange peel, less material and knockdown effort. Good call on it getting dry before completely knocked, was wondering about that in the back of my mind.... especially with it being nearly 100F these days.

 

[vtx531]

I textured my garage with the harbor freight gun. It worked fine. Quite messy though, you will definitely need to mask off EVERYTHING.

The most important recommendation I can give you is to use premixed drywall mud and water that down. I did this on one wall in my garage and it was great, nice even, smooth. Then I cheaped out of bought the bags of dry mix. No matter how much I mixed it, it would still come up a little bit clumpy from the gun and made the wall more of a popcorn texture than the orange peel that I was going for.

 

[Zeke]

If you use dry mix, you have to mix, let sit for 30 minutes, remix usually adding more water and strain using a common kitchen strainer.

For a fine orange peel to match old paint, I mix oil abased primer and some left over water based wall paint 50/50 and roll it on using a long nap roller. I throw the roller away. It leaves a great ink blotter like texture and it's good to recoat with your regular wall paint.

I discovered this technique by accident one day 35 years ago when I mixed the 2 different paints together that were the same color. I used the material to prime a badly checked T1-11 siding and it filled in all the checking like concrete block filler paint. It lasted a long time as well. So, I keep on doing this.

 

[kyle242gt]

That's a really cool idea, Zeke! Putting that one in the mental inventory for sure.

The HF mudgun worked fine, using watered-down premix.

Put down a medium knockdown, which dried to knocking thickess almost immediately over the new sheetrock and dry mud. Took much much longer over the old paint. Should have primed the whole shebang first, or skimcoated the old work. Live and learn.

Eventually got a decent finish, then went back and put a very fine orange peel on the whole thing.

Ceiling was a different, but similar story. The old painted areas took hours to dry, but dried pretty flat. Really hard to tell how well the dry knocked areas, wet unknocked areas, and misted orange peel will come together.

It's now my wife's turn to work on this stupid thing, prime and paint, so we'll see how it comes together. Then tile, which I've also never done before. Aah, the joys of learning.

Thanks very much to all in this thread for the help!!