Paint Over a Dirty Textured Ceiling

LESLIE: Sharon in New Mexico needs some help with a textured ceiling. What can we do for you?

SHARON: Well, yes. I do have a textured ceiling and I have a ceiling fan. So in summer the ceiling gets really dirty and I haven’t found a great solution to go ahead and clean it.

TOM: Well, aside from getting the dust off – that you could do with a vacuum – you’re probably …

SHARON: Uh-huh.

TOM: … better off repainting it. Have you painted it at all?

SHARON: No, I haven’t.

TOM: I think that it’s probably so absorbent that it’s sucking up all the dirt. There is a little trick of the trade for painting this and it has to do with the type of roller you use; it’s very, very thick and it’s actually sliced.

LESLIE: Yeah. It looks – it looks like one of those sliced, Virginia hams; like those spiral hams? And the whole …

SHARON: OK, OK.

LESLIE: … roller itself is completely sliced, so as you paint over the textured ceiling, the roller sort of opens up to accommodate that texture and it will get the paint all around. But it will also put the paint on without removing the ceiling.

SHARON: OK.

TOM: And I think if you prime the ceiling and then paint it, you’ll find that it traps a lot less dirt and it looks a lot better.

SHARON: OK. So go ahead and prime it first. But what do I do about cleaning the dirt off? Just stacking the mess that I get?

TOM: (overlapping voices) Well, you just vacuum it off. Yeah, just vacuum off as much as you can. The primer will do a really good job of sealing in whatever is there; that’s why you’re using it. That’s basically the base that makes the paint stick, so it’ll seal it in nicely.

SHARON: Oh, OK.

TOM: And then you could paint on top of that with some ceiling paint. And by the way, make sure you buy ceiling paint because it doesn’t drip as much.

SHARON: Oh, OK. Great. I appreciate that. Thank you.

TOM: You’re welcome. You’re welcome, Sharon. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.