What Will Drywall Texture Stick To??

steve-in-kville

I've been getting a variety of answers to this question, both on here at CT and otherwise. Will a drywall texture properly adhere to just an applied primer? Or is a topcoat with a flat sheen okay, too?

I am a little confused by this. My local SW manager tells me that any flat paint will allow for a texture, but I've read online that only a primer will hold a texure without problems.

Please advise. Thanks!!

steve

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wackman

I've done patches in the past where I feather the texture out onto the painted areas and never had any problems but I'm definitely no expert on painting or drywall.

AAPaint

It won't necassarily give you trouble on areas with flat paint, but the idea is to prime the whole area to be textured so that the texture dries evenly, and if it's knockdown, you get a smooth even knockdown, not flat spots etc that make it look bad. You also ensure that you have a surface that it can form a proper, more permanent bond. You never know if moisture or some other unforseen issue is going to attack your work in the next ten years. Sometimes with textures heavily applied over un-primed surfaces bumping the wall or the patched area can cause them to fall off. It's not things that happen every day that we prime for, it's the things we don't know will happen. If you ever read the bag of texture, or read the mfg's website, you will see many of them recommend the same thing I do. Sandwich the texture between primer coats. One coat under for adhesion, one on top for porosity and even color.

I've seen many things textured without primer and plenty that have held up fine. It all boils down to how good a job you want to do, which is why you hear so many opinions.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

steve-in-kville

Here's what I'm doing specifically: I asked about covering cigarette smoke stains about a week ago. The home in question is a 2200' town home built in 1938. Original plaster. One owner until now. The upstairs was last painted about 20 years ago. They did not smoke upstairs, so just the general odor exists.

Downstairs is papered walls and cielings. Heavy smoke stains exist. You would think if the paper stuck well all these years that the under-lying plaster can't be too contaminated??

None the less, we're gonna strip the paper and use an oil primer all around. I have a few partial cans of Kilz orginal and I bought a few cans of SW ProBlock HS primer. I plan to eventually texture the walls, but in the meantime I thought I'd apply a flat "cheap" latex (read: ProMar 700) over the oil primer. Whatever is on top, must take the texture I plan to apply in a year or less.

Hope that makes sense to you all. Thanks for the replies thus far.

steve

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