Is this recoverable?

My bathroom ceiling had multiple layers, silk paint, removed with steamer, artex also removed with steamer underneath the artex was PVA and under the PVA some kind of sand textured paint I am down to bare plaster in about 50% of the ceiling area, the first picture shows the area still to be tackled I've been using xtex with ok success and a lot of graft I'm now left with areas I can't scrape any more off as it's too thin and the scraper slides over do I stand any chance of getting a good finish on this ceiling without a re skim, aside from the area still to be tackled, my thought process is sand the whole ceiling to remove any loose or flakey bits, give the ceiling a thorough wash with sugar soap to remove any muck dust and grease and paint with something like zinsser bin to seal anything that remains on the surface, fill and sand any imperfections once the zinsser bin has fully dried then water based undercoat and top coat was thinking water based satin, am I ****ing in the wind and should I save a lot of time money and effort and get it skimmed?

also please ignore the standard ceiling rose in the bathroom this is purely temporary so I can work in there after dark.

I've painted over much worse than that (although hard to tell how uneven it is from the photos) with Zinsser Cover Stain and then put scrubbable matt emulsion over and you can hardly tell without peering closely. This was on walls though, and the angle of the light coming from the ceiling light might highlight imperfections on the ceiling more. If you plan to use Silk, Satin or Gloss then it will show up a lot more, but Matt hides a lot because of the way it reflects light. If you are worried get it skimmed.

There's only one way to find out . give it a sand and a coat of paint you will easily then be able to see if the imperfections are fillable or not, you could also fade in slightly larger imperfections with a plastering trowel or caulk board and filler.

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DavidSWP said:

I've painted over much worse than that (although hard to tell how uneven it is from the photos) with Zinsser Cover Stain and then put scrubbable matt emulsion over and you can hardly tell without peering closely. This was on walls though, and the angle of the light coming from the ceiling light might highlight imperfections on the ceiling more. If you plan to use Silk, Satin or Gloss then it will show up a lot more, but Matt hides a lot because of the way it reflects light. If you are worried get it skimmed.

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Thanks for your response, I think by the time Ive finished scraping and given it a good sand over with 120 grit and a sanding pole I reckon the uneveness will be minimal, thanks for the tip re matt paint, I actually prefer the matt finish, any recommendations on scrubbable matt paint, it seems zinsser do so many products recommendened everywhere I look, I look at the coverstain cheers

chappers said:

There's only one way to find out . give it a sand and a coat of paint you will easily then be able to see if the imperfections are fillable or not, you could also fade in slightly larger imperfections with a plastering trowel or caulk board and filler.

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The imperfections at worst pre sanding are probably half a mm, I think I will do some more research in to the many zinsser products ive seen recommended from bin to gardz and everything inbetween.

none of those will take out imperfections but might help if you have a suspect substrate

I know they won't take out the Imperfections that's what I will use filler for but they will help hide the multitude of previous coverings on the ceiling

A plasterer would re skim that in a a few hours. Sub £100 including materials.

I appreciate you want to do the work, but why not get it skimmed and be done with it?

I've been in your situation, albeit with fewer layers, and I would get it reskimmed every time. Less hassle, time and mess, and a nicer result.

Cheers
Richard