The bungalow decades
The village design statement for East Preston describes a large part of the village where bungalows dominate, most built between the 1950s and the 1980s, often a whole road or close at a time in matching styles and materials. Normandy Lane and Normandy Drive, Vermont Way and Lavinia Way all fall in that area, along with private roads around Hazelmead Drive, The Roystons and part of The Ridings. Elsewhere, some large pre-war houses were pulled down or had their gardens developed, and closes of bungalows took their place.
Those were the decades when textured ceilings were most fashionable across the country, so a bungalow of that age that has never been completely refurbished may well still have one, along with the odd patterned wall in a hallway or around a chimney breast.
The asbestos question
Textured coatings applied before 2000 can contain asbestos. The risk only arises when the material is disturbed: sanded, scraped, drilled or broken. With so much of the village's housing built before that date, the sensible approach is to treat an untested textured ceiling as if it might contain asbestos until a test says otherwise. Have a sample checked by an asbestos surveyor before anyone drills, scrapes or takes it down. Plastering over a sound coating leaves it sealed where it is and does not remove it, which is worth noting in the house paperwork for any future sale.
Plastering over the pattern
When the ceiling is sound, the work is clean and contained. The room is cleared and sheeted, the pattern is sealed with a bonding agent so the new plaster grips without any sanding, a first coat fills the high and low points level, and a second coat is trowelled to a smooth, closed finish. In a bungalow, where every room is on one floor, it is easy to work through the house a room or two at a time while you carry on living there. Light fittings and smoke alarms are taken down and their positions marked, and if you would like to move or add downlights, it is easiest for your electrician to run the new cables before the ceiling is plastered.
Patterned walls are dealt with in the same way, with new beads on the corners so the edges come out crisp and straight.
When the ceiling needs more than a skim
If a textured ceiling has cracked along the board joints, sagged, or started to pull away, plastering over it will not hold. Fixing new plasterboard over the old ceiling, or replacing it, followed by a finish coat, is the reliable answer. In a bungalow where the roof space is being converted, the ceiling below may be affected by the structural work anyway, so it is worth deciding early whether it stays.
Adding detail once it is flat
A flat ceiling is the moment to fit a neat cove or a ceiling rose; see coving and cornice in East Preston. For walls that need a fresh finish at the same time, see plastering and skimming in East Preston. Our main Artex plastering page explains more about the process, and the East Preston page lists all our services in the village. Call 07824 165672 or send a couple of photos for a free quote.
