Terrible Ceiling patching

[Mikefromlondon]

I don't know what my tenant had been upto, there is a roughly a 6"x6" square patch exactly above where her bed was, and this patch the other side is loft, which is quite shallow for head height, so it is not like one would be able to walk in the loft and lost his footing and put their foot through. ( My tenant did not pay rent for 9 months and finally left my property in a total mess, (Bitch) and she would refuse me access to visit my property from time to time saying that it was not convenient whenever I wanted to visit and would say everything was fine, she even refused me access when I wanted to accompany an RGI but she only allowed him in)

Now that I gor rid of that scum tenant, (I am so glad, never again social tenants) so I was inquisitive and went up in loft to see why anyone would cut out a square hole in the ceiling ruining the bloody thing, I couldn't work out why this hole was made and for what pur[pose other than may be sone sex contraption!

I also found some brown round balls, hundreds of them, I am not sure if these are seeds , particularly Marijuana seed??? these little brown round solid hard balls are roughly the size of Malteesers, and things may be just fertiliser or plant food, as I cut one open and there is a black core inside, almost similar in texture to malteesers, the brown layer is only a thin surface layer and can crumpble if you dig your nails into it, and I found a broken large size grow lamp 250watt energy saving type left behind in her bedroom, I bet her fellow was up to something, and I beleive he is in prision as I found some notes she left behind stating when she could visit him!

Any ways, I need to sort this patch out and blend it as best as I can to match the rest of the ceiling.

How best I can do this ?

From what I know some ceiling artex material may contain asbesstos, so I need to know if this is the case, my idea is to level the filler they have used to patch up the hole, preasumably they have used filler of some sort, so I can grind the excess off until it is more or less level with the rest of the ceiling.

Then some how create that patteren to match the ceiling. But I don't know how that pattern was created. Is there a special roller for it or a sponge that creates that patteren, and what do I need material wise to create it.

 

[Bosswhite]

You are not going to be able to match the artex finish, your best bet is get a plasterer in and skim the ceiling, shouldnt cost a great deal.

I guess that your tenants Hydroponic kit leaked

 

[Mikefromlondon]

You are not going to be able to match the artex finish, your best bet is get a plasterer in and skim the ceiling, shouldnt cost a great deal.

I guess that your tenants Hydroponic kit leaked

Thanks, indeed the best route would be to remove the artex and skim the ceiling, a route which i would like to avoid if I can, I would be happy enough if the patch is levelled off with no ridges showing and then try and paint over it and using some sort of sponge or furry roller try and lift off to create a similar effect, even though the pattern is unlikely to match, but I am not sure how this pattern was created originally, what did they use? not one of them large sponge with big structure as opposed to sponge you get for washing cars is densely structured.

 

[cajar]

you wont be able to hide a patch like that, you need it skimmed. You can skim over the artex.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Unfortunately, i have a new tenant moving in on Monday the 31st of March or 1st of April, he has already brought over some stuff, so there is No time now to do a major repairs, they had already seen the place and given their deposit to my lettings agent, this was their one of the condition that if I can sort this ugly patch and smmoth it up and repaint they won't mind but as it is it sticks out like a sore thumb.

So I went up there today and ground off the excess protrusion or ridges left, they used filler that came out easy, using a flat disc grinder, I had my helper sucking up the dust with a hoover so 90% 0f the dust went staright into the hoover and about 10% floated out, we both wore masks, so in case if we did touch any of the existing artex there may be some asbetoss, though it is unlikely as the use of asbestoss was outlawed in most buildings a some years back.

I took some white ceiling emulsion qnd mixed some white filler powder, creating a thin paste like consistency, and using a small bushy roller, I managed to create the artex effect with rando pattern, it looks a lot better than before, sadly I forgot my camera so cannot show how it looks now, I am back there tomorrow as there are still a few more things to sort out before the new tenants move in, need to re make bath tub seals as old seals had black mouldy around edges and corners, and same again with kitchen stainelss steel sink that needs fresh silicone seallant, soon as I take new picture I shall place it here to show that it looks almost 90% better and now it doesn't show up like a sore thumb as before. Only thing now is the whole ceiling will need to be painted as you can tell where the fresh paint is against older pain that was done 2 years ago.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

edited double post

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Managed to repair that patch to a degree better, doesn't sticks out like a sore thumb any more, once the whole ceiling is painted it should look even better.

 

[Bosswhite]

whack a bit of oil based undercoat on the water stain edging before you emulsion it, will hold back the discolouration.

 

[TheVictorian]

The balls were probably clay balls which you use instead of soil for the roots to hold into, the nutrients all come from the water.

They wouldn't have been seeds as they are far too big.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

The balls were probably clay balls which you use instead of soil for the roots to hold into, the nutrients all come from the water.

They wouldn't have been seeds as they are far too big.

You could be right, I will post some pictures of it later on, and it does seem like a clay with black inner like Maltesers., but the size of balls varies between large pea to size of a grape, and the grow lamp that found rang an alarm, then later on as I was cleaning the place found some empty satchets of flowering seeds, and she had tipped all the growing pots and the soil outside in the garden, with hundreds of these balls all strewen around, some soil and these balls were also found in her bedroom cupboard, thats what made me wonder if they were growing something illegal indoors in the bedroom and that hole may have been used for some ventilaation purpose like popping an air duct through the ceiling !

 

[misterhelpful]

That repair has turned out a lot better than I was expecting. It's certainly better than a lot of patching that I've seen done by Artexing pros. Once the whole ceiling is painted it should be practically unnoticeable.

Nice one!

 

[sparkwright]

Another quick fix would be to stick a round plaster ceiling rose over the patch, not sure what would look better, though your repair isn't as bad as it may have been!

 

[cajar]

I'm surprised how well it turned out, well done.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

thanks guys appreciate your good comments, you can only get as good as the time you can spend, I could have got it slightly more perfect, but i was scared of grinding down too much in case I struck the surrounding artex which may or may not contain a small amount of asbesstoss,

But I used a small amount of white matt and mixed some filler powder and made into a semi thick consitency and rolled ot over, and then with the same fluffy roller (I used a small one) I dabbed it and withdrew it and dipped it in some more stuff and dabbed it on gently and by trial and error it seem to have worked out reasonably well. Should look good once all the ceiling is painted, I will pain some oil based paint first to seal the stain as suggested.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Another quick fix would be to stick a round plaster ceiling rose over the patch, not sure what would look better, though your repair isn't as bad as it may have been!

Indeed one could do this, and since it was above a bed more towards one side of it, one could then add another feature at the other side as well to create a balanced (symetrical) purposly made feature on the ceiling, to hide a silly patch.