By Paul Bianchina
A good drywall job can create a smooth and uniform series of walls and ceilings throughout any home. But it's the application of texture in all of its varied forms and designs that goes a long way toward creating the home's individual look and feel.
Drywall texture can take a wide variety of forms and what appeals to different people is often a matter of the materials used, the techniques employed and individual taste. From a light, machine-applied "orangepeel" to the heavy swirls of a hand-applied Mediterranean look, there's something for everyone.
Getting Ready
Texture is the last thing applied to the drywall after the completion of the installation and topping processes. The drywall is completely hung and taped, then all of the seams are covered and smoothed over with successive coats of drywall cement until the walls appear seamless.
Once the topping is done, most drywallers prefer to prime the drywall prior to applying the texture. The primer coat seals the porous paper surface of the drywall and helps to point up any flaws in the finish topping coats prior to putting on the texture. Priming can be done with wallboard sealer or with a primer - talk with your paint store or drywall supplier for their specific recommendations.
Following the application of the sealer, you'll next want to mask off any areas that aren't going to be textured - areas where you wish to preserve a totally smooth surface for paint or wallpaper - as well as any areas that will be textured differently from the surrounding surfaces.
Machine Applications
Because of its uniformity and greatly increased speed, most texturing today is done by machine. Powdered texture material is mixed with water, then air pressure is used to blow the texture through a nozzle. For large areas, a professional texturing rig will give the most uniform appearance. These are large, gas-powered, trailer-mounted machines with an on-board mixer and a hundred feet or more of air and material hoses, terminating in a trigger-operated texture gun with a variety of interchangeable tips.
Smaller areas - typically no more than a room or two-can be textured effectively by the do-it-yourselfer using a hopper gun, which is simply a large plastic hopper mounted on top of a metal spray gun. Liquid texture material is poured into the hopper, the gun is attached to an air compressor, and the texture is sprayed onto the surface. Hopper guns are more difficult to regulate and keep uniform, and since you're carrying a hopper full of material with you as you texture they are also very tiring to use for long periods. Hopper guns can be purchased inexpensively at most drywall stores and home centers, or they can be rented.
Variations in the thickness of the texture material, the amount of air pressure and the size of the opening in the nozzle - along with the speed and motion of the person wielding the texture gun - dictate the final look of the texture. The two most common machine-applied textures are:
- Orangepeel, also called splatter, is the lightest texture. A combination of thin material, high air pressure, a small nozzle opening, and a rapid spraying motion creates small dots of texture on the wall.
- Knockdown, which combines thicker material, lower air pressure, a larger nozzle and a slower application to spray large globs of texture onto the surface. As the texture begins to dry, a wide metal trowel called a knockdown blade is pulled lightly over the texture globs, knocking down the high spots and creating large flat areas. By varying the ratios of these four elements, along with the pressure used during the knocking down process, knockdown texture can be varied from very light to very heavy.
Texturing is a matter of practice. It's not a difficult thing to do in and of itself. It's simply a difficult thing to do over a large area with any degree of uniformity. If you're new to texture application, your best bet is to practice in an inconspicuous area such as a closet, or by hanging large sheets of paper on the wall and texturing the paper for practice before moving onto the wall itself.
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