The roll on always looks cheesy and amateurish. The spray on texture looks
professional. I did my own knock down ceilings for the first time a year
ago and they look great! I bought a gun and a knockdown knife as it was
cheaper than renting as I am slowly going through my house room by room
sprucing up my flat ceilings. If he has some manual dexterity it will go
fine. I practiced in the closet ceilings but first on the backs of some old
drywall.


"Tom Miller" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 18:59:44 -0800, "WHoME?"
wrote:

| i'm a novice willing to try out texturing two of my rooms. i plan on
| experimenting on some card board boxes first. at what air pressure do
you
| suggest this be applied?
|
| thanks in advance
|
|


"Novice with spray gun" is a recipe for a major mess. At least it
would be in my house with me aiming the spray gun! Instead, try this:

Get a paint roller with a deep nap sleeve -- the deepest available --
and a bucket of pre-mixed dry wall mud (joint cement). Roll the mud on
slowly just like you would roll on paint. The deep nap of
the roller and the thick mud will leave the texture you want.

You might have to thin down the mud a little with water to get the
right application, and you will have to practice a bit to get the
exact texture you want. Try it out on a small area first (or on a
board or box as you suggested) and see what you
get. If you make a mistake you can scrape it off while wet with a
trowel or putty knife.

If the texture you leave on the wall is too "peaked" for example, you
can knock it down with a clean, damp roller after the texture sets up
a little. Make sure you roll it on smoothly, as ridges and
odd swirls will show. You have to be a bit artistic and pay attention
to matching the existing texture.

After the texture dries, paint the whole wall the color you want. I
did this on several areas in my 1921 house when we were
renovating it and it worked fine. I never found it necessary to add
sand to the paint or texture. My experience with my own house and
homes of neighbors from the '20s is that sand was not used -- that was
a later method and yields a different effect. A crappier effect IMHO.

You can also buy more expensive premixed texture paint the color you
want.