apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I had walls like this in my kitchen and I just took my power sander and made short work of it. A few spots needed to be patched with some mud but for the most part the sander did the trick.

If you are using a sander to smooth this stuff out, be very sure to use proper protection for your lungs. I would recommend a respirator, as a paper "dust" mask from the hardware store will do very little to keep the powdery residue out of your lungs (they are meant to protect from larger kinds of "dust"). Depending on how lumpy the surface is, I would be inclined to do a skim coat of mud rather than try to sand it all down.

If you plan to "gut" -- you are better off waiting. You could "skimcoat" -- but it's a lot of work and will not take well in a wet environment like a bathroomn.

Short of gutting, the best thing to do is cover with the thinnest sheetrock (I believe it is 1/4") -- which I think you'd end up doing anyway during a complete renovation.

I don't recommend the sanding mentioned above -- my experience with old NYC bathrooms says you might find some unwelcome surprises -- and you can be certain you will be dealing with lead paint, not something you want released in your home in micro-powder form while sanding!

It will look less offensive if you use a matte paint rather than a gloss.

New sheetrock. For me, it wouldn't be worth the time, effort, and potential health risks to try to work with the existing wall, especially if you're going to be gutting the whole thing anyways. If it's the color that bothers you, you might be able to find an enamel paint to cover up the brown.

Just rent a 5" orbital sander and have at it till it's smooth. It should only take you a day or two. Do not sheet rock. You'll get mildew problems.

Sand, skimcoat and sand again.

Without ripping out the walls, there's no other way to do it right.

Is your building old (pre-1970s)? I would first find out if you have lead paint. You shouldn't dry-sand if you have lead paint. Covering up, smoothing over and repainting might be the way to go.

Try sanding now, but skim coating well requires a professional. I think I'd just paint the walls with pearl/semigloss and save the work, money and time for the gut renovation.

Pretty hideous stuff, I agree. But like "Lisa Hunter (Montreal)" I agree that you could try a nice thick matte paint before trying to do anything more drastic. You might be pleasantly surprised!

We had a similar situation in the living room of our NYC apartment except it was the 100x worse. Instead of the rigorous chore of sanding sanding sanding, we instead:

--applied a thick coat of plaster [spackle],
--before it dried we took a large car-washing size sponge and soaked it and then smoothed out the plaster
--after that dried [quite a while] we painted it

I'm convinced this is a lot easier than sanding and also better health-wise.

Good luck!!

We had professional painters skim coat all of our walls which had hideous texture just like that and they look fantastic! Literally, like brand new walls. They did not sand anything, just used joint compound I think to coat everything. Took less than a day and sooo worth the $. It looks a million times better.