Where textured ceilings turn up in Bognor Regis
Textured ceiling coatings were at the height of fashion in the decades after the Second World War, and that is exactly when Bognor Regis did much of its growing. West Sussex County Council's historic survey of the town describes post-1945 suburbs reaching up to 2.8 kilometres inland between the A259 and the A29, with Bognor's western edge running on into Aldwick, Nyetimber and Pagham. In Felpham, three gated estates went up between 1930 and 1960, and more housing followed in the 1970s on farmland towards Middleton-on-Sea. Homes from those years are the ones most likely to have a swirl, stipple or fan pattern overhead, sometimes on hallway and stairwell walls too. Older properties are not exempt either: a Victorian terrace near the station may well have had its ceilings coated during a 1970s makeover.
Why we plaster over it rather than strip it
Scraping a textured ceiling back to bare board is slow, dusty and can wreck the plasterboard behind it. Plastering over a sound coating avoids all of that. Pro Finish seals the surface with a bonding coat so the new plaster grips without any sanding, fills the pattern with a first coat, then lays a second, finishing coat over the top. The plaster we use is British Gypsum, and the result is a flat ceiling with nothing of the pattern left to see.
Asbestos: what Bognor homeowners and landlords should know
Many of the town's textured ceilings will date from before 2000, and coatings applied before then can contain asbestos. It is only a hazard when the material is disturbed, by sanding, scraping, drilling or breaking it up. Nobody can tell by looking. If you are unsure of the age of your ceiling, have a sample tested by an asbestos surveyor before anyone works on it in a way that disturbs it. Plastering over a sound coating leaves it in place rather than removing it. Landlords letting flats or houses in the town may also want the test result on file before any future work, such as new downlights, cuts into the ceiling.
When the ceiling underneath has had enough
Not every textured ceiling is a candidate for a skim. Common problems we look for:
- Cracking along board joints, often a sign that the boards have moved.
- Sagging or bowing between joists, which plaster alone will not pull back.
- Water staining from a leaking bathroom above, or from roof leaks after the winter storms that the south coast gets.
- Loose or flaking patches where the coating has lost its grip.
In those cases the answer is usually new plasterboard, fixed over the old ceiling or in place of it, before a skim. Walls that are poor underneath their pattern may need taking back and replastering. Our plastering and skimming page for Bognor Regis explains how the different backgrounds are handled.
Finishing the room properly
A flat ceiling is the moment to rethink the room. Downlights sit cleanly in it instead of throwing shadows across every ridge, and a new cove or cornice can go up where the old textured finish never suited one. If you would like a crisp cove line or a period-style profile, see coving and cornice in Bognor Regis.
Pro Finish covers the whole of the town and its suburbs, from the seafront to North Bersted and from Aldwick across to Elmer; see our Bognor Regis area page. For more on the method, read about plastering Artex ceilings and walls flat. For a free, no-obligation quote, ring 07824 165672 or send a couple of photos of the ceiling.
