To get started, prep your space by covering your floors with plastic (if needed!). I did not feel like I could get a smooth finish like I could with a drywall knife. If you notice in my picture, I was originally using a Magic Trowel after seeing so many recommendations. Plastic and painters tape if you need to cover floors or doorways.Pole sander and sandpaper (I only used 220 grit).I used Plus 3 by USG Sheetrock after reading many, many tutorials.It is definitely labor intensive, but it’s doable for a DIYer! Materials NeededĮveryone has their preferred tools to skim coat, but this is what I found worked best for me. The joint compound fills in the low areas of the texture! I was so nervous to give skim coating a shot. So what is skim coating? A skim coat is when you apply diluted joint compound to the walls and smooth it out with a drywall knife. This is what our knockdown texture looks like. I figured, let’s just skim coat the entire room! And that’s what I did. In my opinion, board and batten looks much more professional with smooth board sections rather than texture. The bottom of the walls we did a double board and batten. I knew it was best to skim coat over the texture for the wallpaper section on the tops of the walls. It is recommended to install wallpaper on fairly smooth walls for better adhesion and so you don’t see the bumpy texture under the wallpaper. There's no top coat in the game plan.We just completed a fun little makeover in our oldest two boys’ room and the number one question I have received over on the gram is “Why did you skim coat the walls?” We live in Texas and we have very heavy knockdown textured walls. They're still not primers because the purpose of them rocks causing the sealer to dry rough is NOT to improve adhesion of a subsequent top coat, it's purely esthetic. If they are advertised as drying to a matte finish, it's because they do have those big rocks in them. Grout sealers, for example, don't have big rocks in them that cause them to dry to a matte finish unless they are advertised as Matte Sealers. Since those huge rocks do both jobs in both latex and oil based primers, most primers call themselves "Primer/Sealer"s. Those very same rocks are what cause the primer to dry to a rough surface, thereby providing "tooth" for better adhesion of the top coat (priming). As the primer is drawn into the porous surface of the substrate by capillary action, it's those huge rocks that plug up the porous surface of the substrate (sealing). In paints, both of these functions are accomplished by "extender pigments" which are huge rocks that are almost large enough to see with the naked eye. A sealer is something that prevents fluid (gas or liquid) movement into or out of the substrate. A primer is a coating that not only sticks well to the substrate, but improves the adhesion of the top coat. The reason why is because in your case, you don't really need a primer, you need a sealer. Most latex and oil based primers will call themselves "Primer/Sealer"s. Scrape them off with a tungsten carbide paint scraper (which are sharp enough to easily scrape off texture, but not sharp enough to damage plaster or drywall unintentionally). The sharp lighting angle will make any little bumps and ridges stand out like mountains, making them easy to find. But, before you do that, you should check the ceiling by shining a bright light on it at a sharp angle to the ceiling.
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