All of the walls in my house have been texture painted with the plastic bag technique and I want to remove this. I have tried paint remover however it won't work with the sheetrock. What can I do?

Sorry - but one of the drawbacks to all of our "faux" finishes is that making the walls smooth again require --elbow grease -- Sanding down the texture, "skim coating" with sheetrock mud, if necessary, then sanding again - is about the only way to get to a smooth,paintable surface again. Good Luck!!

Siber is correct. Had the faux finish been done correctly the walls would be pretty smooth and you wouldn't have to deal with this.

Sounds like a do-it-yourselfer job and it's going to take some serious work to get it smooth.

Good luck. Get yourself an electric sander and jump in. It might not be as bad as you think.

The previous posts are good suggestions. Another alternative would be to laminate a layer of 1/4" gypsum board, using the mud layer to achieve the correct level. This might work if you don't mind adding another 3/8" or so to the thickness of the wall, and sure is a lot faster than sanding. Good Luck!

quote:

removing

IF THE TEXTURE IS REALLY HARD TO TAKE OFF. YOU MIGHT WANT TO PUT UP 1/4 INCH SHEET ROCK TO COVER YOUR PROBLEM. OR EVEN 1/2 INCH SHEET ROCK IF YOU CAN'T GET 1/4 SHEET ROCK.
I THINK YOU WOULD BE AHEAD, BECAUSE OF THE EXPENSE OF REMOVING THE TEXURE AND THE TIME IT WOULD TAKE. I HAD A SIMARLIAR JOB IN MY HOUSE THAT WAS BUILD IN 1906.
JUST A THOUGHT. LET ME KNOW IF YOU THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA
MIKE L. PEREZ JR.

All of the suggestions listed so far are good solutions but I might add one little twist. Unless you are willing to probably willing to remove all your door and floor trim the 1/4" or 1/2" s/r will be fairly time comsuming. You still have to mud and tape all your joints. My suggestion would be skim coat your finish and then find a rental yard (Home Depot, etc.) and rent a drywall sanding tool. Porter cable makes one that is excellent. They have the vacumn hooked up to the tool which makes cleanup mimimal. Good Luck!

Not all faux finishes are textured. As a matter of fact, very few are textured depending upon the type of faux finish applied. In your case, textyre was applied. The easiest solutionis to sheetrock the wall, making sure there is enough room along the baseboard (if there is a base board) to fit the sheetrock inside the base or along the top of it without coming out over the edge. Other than that, sanding the texture is an option but use a heavy grit paper (random orbital) and hook up to a shop vac to avoid the dust issues.
I do historical restoration work and faux finishes of all types; most of ours we create from scratch. Good luck.

The texture may be drywall compound used for taping and skim coating. Try scoring the paint, then thoroughly soaking a small area and using a stiff plastic scraper to remove the added surface material. Good luck.

For a little texture- I would NOT go thru the hassel of re-sheetrocking a room- removing trim, baseboard, taping and sanding! Yuck! Most faux finishes are done with Latex paint &/or glaze - these are water soluable - (Do not use Paint thinner) -In fact, I just read where some finishes(and some wallpaper) can be removed using a fabric softner/water solution. Worth a try- if sanding doesn't work. Of course, a solid paint over texture will give you a nice look as well - try using eg-shell latex.

It sounds to me that Siber is probably a designer of sorts and not a hands on person regarding faux of finishes. Her input is okay however, in orderto get a real good answer, provide more information so those responding can give you more accurate information.
Siber, nothing personal but to tell someone one thing wont work in favor of your ideas I feel is unprofessional. Good luck!

You may be sorry when you remove this type of finish. I have found that it was used to cover chips, cracks, and even seams in SR that they didn't know how to cover. If you are lucky and they prepared the walls with a good base-coat, you might try the half water,half fabric softener and a plastic scraper.(what a mess) Start in a small unseen place. I found the fast way is to skim coat and sand it. BUT even faster was to call someone to plaster and go away for the weekend, it was cheeper in the long run.