Help with ceiling repair, gray cement board?

Question

We started to sand our living room ceiling to get rid of a the texture. When we started sanding, the texture began to chip away. After the texture there is still another layer that became exposed and is is the color grey and is very hard. I have seen drywall and this does not appear to be anything like that. Could it be a cement board? Any suggestions as to how to fix it? Should i do ceiling tiles and leave it? Thanks!!

Answer 1

That sounds like plaster. Plaster is put on in several layers of different substances. Some can be gray.

It can not be cement board, that is way too difficult to work with to put into a living room. It is only used in a bathtub/shower or laundry area.

If it not cracked, I would not put in ceiling tiles because I think they look cheesy. You can sand it smooth and paint it or put on new texture.

Why did you take the texture off? Was it only because it was chipping off. I have seen paint chip off of plaster after a lot of years. I have also seen some of the various layers of the plaster chip off or even disentegrate. That usually happens after damage over a long period of time.

I had a layer of drywall installed over the ceiling on one house for cosmetic purposes. Actually, when I say "over", it really was physically under the original ceiling, but we use the term "over" to denote the fact that there was somthing there already.

Answer 2

It could be cement board, but that's sorta of strange for a ceiling. Are you sure it's not lath and plaster, or plasterboard (which is slightly different than drywall)?

Instead of sanding, it may be easier to wet down the ceiling (depending on if you have finished area below, or are re-doing the whole room) and then scraping. Most textures come off pretty easy this way.

Either cement board or plasterboard can be finished as drywall, although you might consider just knocking down the texture, and applying a new drywall ceiling directly over the old. Then finish and paint.

Hope that helps!

Brian

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