Tips for Repainting Textured Walls

Remember when textured walls were so very popular? There were lots of techniques out there that could be used to give what was thought of as a plain, boring wall a new textured look. Feathers, sponges, rags, and stuccoing were common ways to give a wall some texture. You can even buy paint that was designed to give the walls a textured look. When we purchased our home in 2004, I jumped on the textured wall trend. I painted two of our upstairs rooms using a combination of sponges and rags. One room got a paint makeover a few years ago, but my craft space / home office has been lagging behind the times. I could not be happier with the color palette I used and the new look walls help to make the room brighter. 

To show you what I was working with, I’ll share a few photos of the textured walls before I got started on the new paint job. 

When I first painted the walls, I wasn’t using this space for crafting. It was our home office and I thought a Tuscan look would be a nice look for it. I didn’t anticipate that the room would be quite so dark though. Even with a large window, the space was never a favorite spot to work in.

You can see that when using a sponge or rag to apply paint, you’ll get lots of texture with random patterns.

I will say that using a textured paint technique is an easy way to paint a room. There aren’t many mistakes that can be made. But when it’s time to remove the texture, you’ll have a lot more work ahead of you than you would when repainting a smooth wall. 

The first thing that has to be done is to smooth out the texture. In the photo below, the wall has been sanded with my palm sander using medium grit sand paper. Using the palm sander for this is a little tricky. You have to make sure that you use a light touch to avoid gouging the wall. This was by far the most time consuming part of this room makeover. 

Once I was satisfied with the smoothness of the walls, I used TSP to clean away the dust and debris from sanding. Next, I used painter’s tape around the windows, doors, and molding. I needed a color that would be complementary to the peacock color palette that I’m using for the room. A couple of years ago, my son painted his sport’s room using Behr Cosmic Quest. I love the color and I’m planning on using it for our sport’s room, too. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that it would be a great color to go with the peacock accents in this room. I love using Behr paint and have always found it to go on smoothly and evenly. This is not a sponsored post, I’m just sharing my thoughts on a product that I think is great! 

After the first coat, I knew I had made a good decision.

This paint dries quickly and it was ready for its second coat before my tired body was ready to get started. I gave the walls one coat one day and got started on the second coat the next day. The second coat went on even easier than the first. In about two hours, I was ready to start putting the furniture back in place and adding some art to the walls.

I still had a lot of work to do on the organization aspects of the room, but all of the hard work was over once I completed the walls. 

Tips for Painting Over Textured Walls

• If you don’t already have a small hand sander, invest in one. I purchased mine a few years ago at Lowe’s.
• Use medium grit sand paper for sander.
• Use a light touch with the sander to avoid gouging the walls.
• Work slowly in sections to get a consistent look.
• Use TSP to clean up the dust left behind after sanding.
• Use a thick, deep-pile roller for applying new paint. It holds more paint and will cover any spots that might feel rough after sanding.

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Tips for Repainting Textured Walls

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