Peeling Old Mud Off Our Ceiling: Our DIY Home Improvement Project

What we brought for this Project:

My husband and I have what you may call a fixer upper kind of house. This house was such a disaster by the time we moved in that I literally thought there would be no way of ever getting the house liveable.

However, in spite of our house not being liveable, we still moved in to it. If it was not for the house we would have been living out on the streets.

We moved into one room that seemed to be the most acceptable room in the whole house. We had no running water and no plumbing. With our air mattress pumped up and new blankets put on the air mattress, my husband and I laid down to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, there were white flakes all over me, my husband and our bed. When I looked up to the ceiling I saw that the paint from the dry wall mud was falling off the ceiling chunks at a time.

I had no idea how to fix the issue. So I began to fold my blankets and sit our air bed up during the day. This was becoming more work than I wanted to do. This never really helped the fact that every morning when I woke up, I felt like I was eating paint.

With jokes that the sky is falling, Robbie and I decided to get a scraper and scrape off the peeling paint from the ceiling. All we needed were safety glasses, an umbrella, ladder or scaffolding and scraper.

Beginning the project:

The first thing you will need to do is prepare yourself for the raindrops of paint. I would not suggest wearing your good clothes during this project because you will become a mess. Once you have gathered all the materials then you can begin the project.

Start at the farthest end of the room in a corner. Stand on what object you may be using to reach the ceiling, but practice safety. When you are doing repairs that involve heights it is important to be safe or else you will be doing repairs on yourself.

Scraping the ceiling:

As you begin in the corner of the ceiling take your scraper and apply as much pressure to the ceiling as you possibly can. You may leave marks but if you intend to redo the mud on the ceiling, the scrape marks will be covered.

Block off the ceiling in parts in order to scrape the mud off in portions. take the scrapper and scrape it across the peeling ceiling and let all the flakes fall to the floor. Try to keep your eyes covered in order to prevent the flakes from falling in your eyes. A handkerchief around your mouth will also help prevent you from breathing in the flakes and dust.

Continue this scrapping until you are done with the whole ceiling. I would suggest taking lots of breaks in between parts to prevent your arms from getting sore.

Finished:

Once you are finished with the project you will then need to sweep up the flakes of mud off the floor. ( or vacuum depending on whether you have carpet or not. ) I would suggest that after you take a broom and sweep up the big flakes, you should take a vacuum and clean the rest of the dust off the floor. However, if you have plastic to cover your floor, it would prevent the hassle of this step.

Instead of having to sweep and vacuum, you could carefully pull up the plastic and throw it and all the dust away.
Do not forget to put all the equipment away. After all the tools are put away and the room is cleaned up. You may want to clean yourself up. If you leave the mud on your skin to long you may begin to feel very itchy.

When we finished:

We still have a bare ceiling now, but at least we are not covered in flakes when we sleep at night. The plan is to hang Luan floor boards onto the ceiling. It sounds weird but, it provides a very beautiful ceiling once the boards have been stained. Eventually, the whole house will be a finished product until then, we just have to do one little tiny piece at a time.


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