Painted-Over Tape on Bedroom Ceiling?

September 15, 2010 9:41 AM

New home has what looks like painted-over tape on the bedroom ceiling. Help me identify what is going on under the paint and options for covering/removing prior to repainting.

I'm new to home repair stuff, but am eager to learn! My best guess is that the previous owner painted the drywall tape without finishing something!? Thoughts on what's going on and ideas to smooth it out?

posted by gertrude to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

A house I looked at had that all over - my father said they were wallpaper seams.

Although it's hard to understand why someone would wallpaper a ceiling. And then paint over it. But it's a possibility.
posted by kellygrape at 9:47 AM on September 15, 2010

Not easy to tell from the picture - is there a layer of paper under the paint ? Looks like the ceiling is covered in creases and bubbles... or is that just bad painting. If there's paper, it could just be lining paper that's been overlapped for some stupid reason.

Either way, if it were me I'd get up there with a scraper or a knife and find an inconspicuous spot to do a little archaeology.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 9:51 AM on September 15, 2010

Yep, its' wallpaper. See this all the time. There isn't really anything you can do about it before painting short of removing it. Note that there may be a couple layers of paper. You can definitely do it yourself, but know going into it that it's long, tedious, messy work. It's really no fun, but you would save yourself quite a bit of money if you definitely wanted that look gone when you paint next time.
posted by nickjadlowe at 9:52 AM on September 15, 2010

Best answer: A handheld wallpaper steamer would probably get the paper off fairly easily. The trick is to use a little spiked roller thing to pierce the paint (allowing moisture in), then steam the paper until it can be easily scraped off. If they've used normal cellulose-based adhesive it should come away quite easily.

Be aware that a lot of times when people line ceilings and walls with paper before painting, it's because the surface is in a pretty bad state underneath.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 10:00 AM on September 15, 2010

Response by poster: thanks, everyone! I'll do a bit of investigating. I'm curious to see the choice of pattern; there's a cornucopia of fruit underneath the paint in the kitchen. Who knows what they thought appropriate for the bedroom.
posted by gertrude at 10:05 AM on September 15, 2010

I've dealt with a fair amount of painted wallpaper in my house, and a steamer will definitely do the trick. Depending on the age of the paper, though, it could be quick and easy or not so much. I've found that the little scoring tool (spiked roller thing) wasn't all that effective on the painted papers we had. We used the edge of a 4 or 6 inch metal taping (drywall) knife to score lines in the paint and paper and then scraped it off with the same knife.

I also want to emphasize that if this is an older house you should expect to find damaged, crumbly, dirty plaster under that paper. Don't assume you can just blithely scrape off the paper and be ready to re-paint. Get up on a ladder and push gently on the ceiling to see if you can feel soft spots where the plaster may be held in place only by the paper. If you find this, you're probably in for a much bigger project than you thought at first.

I've been through all of this before. It's is doable, but forewarned is forearmed.
posted by that's candlepin at 10:26 AM on September 15, 2010

That looks exactly like the ceiling in my friend's house. It was built in the 60's. I never thought it was wallpaper - I thought it was some sort of technique for finishing a ceiling in that era, similar to the wood paneling in the den. As if these are sheets of papered drywall that get attached to the ceiling as a single unit, not like there was a ceiling and then someone decided to paper it.

I never investigated it, and I have no building experience. It's just based on my observations and conjectures.
posted by CathyG at 10:52 AM on September 15, 2010

You could also just forget about investigations and steaming and scraping and just put up a new ceiling. Drywall over the whole thing -- get it done by professionals who take great care in handling the taping and seaming and painting. It'll look like a brand new, flat, gorgeous seamless ceiling!
posted by amanda at 11:32 AM on September 15, 2010

Looking at the texture of the ceiling (and the cracks), it looks like it is a real plaster ceiling, not drywall. Which probably means that the wallpaper was put up to hold the ceiling together, because it was in bad shape. If you decide to remove it, I would be prepared to do some repair work, or just demo it all and hang new drywall.
posted by misterbrandt at 11:48 AM on September 15, 2010