DIY: How to Texture a Wall (Holy Smooth)

Recently I finished a big job in my living room! 

Well, it seemed more like huge...

There was wall paper that had been on the walls for probably thirty years. 

And underneath that wall paper there was another layer of wall paper. 

I finally decided that it was time to get rid of the old and bring in the new. 

I would like to show you the before and after shots. Some reasons from the wall and wall paper made it so I had to re-texture the wall before I could paint. So, here is a brief instruction on how to texture a wall. I really had to ask around and figure out how to do it. So this is to help others who may  have a project in mind or one day need to texture a spot. 

Just to know it is not as hard as you may think!

Before

After

The texture I chose to do is called Holy Smooth.

This texture is one of the more popular textures that are in right now when building a home. It is a mostly smooth texture that looks like you kind of smoothed over holes that were once there. So, like the title it is called a Holy Smooth Texture.

To begin these are the materials needed:

Cup or Small bucket for mixing

Something to mix with

Bag of Lightweight Joint compound (you can also buy this pre-mixed)

Knockdown Knife (pictures below)

Scrub brush with a grocery sack wrapped around it

-All of these materials can be found at a Lowes, Home Depot or store with house supplies.

Instructions:

1. Mix in your small bucket your joint compound with water. This drys quit fast 

    so don't mix a lot. Mix enough water so it is not chunky, but so that it is all 

    smooth.

2. With your tool you have to mix use that to place a large amount of your 

    compound on the wall. (Remember if you buy the kind in a bucket you don't 

    have to pre-mix and it saves you a lot of time)

3. With your knockdown knife smooth the compound all over. You can cover 2-

    3 feet worth of space at one time. It took me some practice, but I love how 

    it turned out.

4. Now with your scrub brush that is covered with a bag splotch it around 

    where you just smoothed out. Use your knockdown knife again to smooth it 

    down only this time you are going to only smooth it down as much as you 

    want. This will give you that holy smooth look. Use more pressure to make 

    it smoother and less pressure to make it more holy looking. 

5. When you are finished use a paint primer to paint over all the texture and 

    then you are ready to paint your final coating. Good Luck!

    (what is great about this texture is that if you ever need to patch it, you 

    can do it so you can't even tell where you had to patch) 

The Finished Product!

Go to this website to watch how to texture. This is a little different from how I did it, but has the same concept. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW0U0-4dFAc&feature=fvwp&NR=1