Skim-Floating to Smooth a Heavily Textured Wall

Texture looks bad under wallpaper, and in interferes with good adhesion. The walls must be smoothed before the paper can go up. Very similar to popcorn texture but not as thick, this sand type finish still sticks out from the wall in some spots as far as 1/4″. That leaves a lot of space between those grains of grit for me to fill in with smoothing compound.

Here I’ve used a putty knife to knock off the tops of those grains of sand. At the top half of the photo I am applying the smoothing compound. I use a trowel to do this. It’s slow and labor-intensive, but it gets my eyes close to my work, and it gives me the best control. This had to be applied so thickly that it will take probably two days to dry. Having the air conditioner or heat running helps pull moisture out of the material. Once it’s dry I will sand it smooth, and then prime it for wallpaper.

I like Sheetrock’s Plus 3 lightweight joint compound for this task. It adheres well and sands easily. The regular version (in the red, white, and green box) is very difficult to sand. Hot mud or quick dry or 20 minute mud should not be used, as primers and pastes don’t stick well to them.

Tags: 20-minute, adhere, compound, grit, hot, joint, lightweight, mud, paste, plus 3, popcorn, prime, primer, sand, Sheetrock, smooth, stick, texture, wallpaper