Maybe put sealer on tile first.like Kiltz.Maybe paint using a thick roller.alot of work but I hand painted an icicle ceiling once so it can be done.

I'm going to try that right now! Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Just curious... what's an icicle ceiling? I googled it but I didn't come up with anything explanitory.

~Dori

Check with the wallpaper place. There's wallpaper primer and there's sizing. Sizing is the stuff that gives you the "slip". First you prime with the wallpaper primer, then apply the sizing. There may be a product that combines the two. Without the sizing, it's almost impossible to hang the paper....it just sucks to the wall and won't slip.

Don't ask me how I know this. I will probably never get the paper off the walls of my breakfast room. I thought the primer was the same as sizing. It was awful to hang.

The icicle plaster ceiling, the plaster looks like iciles
dripping they took trowel and pulled dowm looks like cakeicing.Some drips were 3" lomg,some 2 a few a little bigger.pretty.salesmen would come to the door and they would comment how pretty the ceiling was.
I think sizing would help but she wants to seal tile first don you?

Yeah, I think prime first with paint or the wallpaper primer stuff, then the sizing.

Is this one of those false celings with the performated ceiling tiles? If so, have you thought about removing and going back to the original ceiling? We had that kind of ceiling in our bathroom and when we had some work done on it (much needed because part of the floor was rotting!) I had them take out the false ceiling. Well, there WAS a rather large hole in the old plaster ceiling above the toilet, and I don't know if it came about from ripping the false ceiling out or if that is the reason they put the false ceiling in, but anyway, over a period of weeks I patched the big hole myself! Just a thought.

Our living room ceiling has some type of white matte-finish tiles with gold glitter in them LOL. I'd love to just paint over them someday if we ever redo our living room (it's last on the list right now, too much other stuff to redo!). I don't know what they're made of--I'm assuming I could just prime & paint.

Amy z6: We have similar tiles on our kitchen and dining room ceiling! They are white with gold "veins" running through them. We washed them, rinsed them (using sponge mops), primed them and then painted them. They look great now!

Thanks Loretta! We think ours is hiding a taller ceiling, since the adjacent dining room's ceiling is higher (with no tiles). I'd like having the higher ceiling, but hubby thinks this ceiling is part of the reason the living room is the warmest room in the house....

Yes...my DH is a heating/air conditioning tech and he wants to put dropped ceilings in all of our rooms, too, for heating/cooling efficiency...but I REFUSE to let him do it! I love the 10' ceilings!

Seal the old tile with GARDZ.

Interesting discussion, thanx everyone.

I loved finding 10' ceilings above an ugly dropped ceiling...but still am not sure how to enclose some ugly heat ducts that were exposed by the project.

I want to rip out 2 more rooms, but I looked with a flashlight, and there will be quite a bit of plumbing exposed above the kitchen, so I dunno. Seems like a big job - but I suppose I might try to to re-run the lines along walls, and add soffits to hide the pipes. Or maybe I'll just leave that suggestion fo rthe next owner, who hopefully will be be a restorationist.

I don't mind a low ceilng in a bedroom, since it can seem cozy and help keep the room warm, but I hate it for living areas. I'd get heavy micro-fiber blanket for sofas, and rip out that fake ceiling! (It will be cooler in summer)

My 115 year old old house had 2 couple rooms with deep icicles in the ceiling. (Thank goodness it wasn't that awful popcorn stuff!) Sleeping under those daggers seems like bad very Feng Shui. Icicles can look menacing, especially when the ceiling needs paint. Who wants to sleep beneath daggers?

Starting with the bedroom, I knocked off the longest of the daggers, by scooting a painters' trowel along, to knock longest edges off. I dabbed primer on before repainting; which was with a fuzzy roller made for very rough surfaces. It has reduced how visually distracting the ceiling is from all the deep valleys. (Am going to do this in the other room, too)

If you try this, wear leather gloves while chipping away at icicles, or your knuckles can get bloodied by the points. There will be a lot of debris flying too, so cover hair, eyes, and anything below. You can just sweep up after this simple job, and it may help prevent a total tear out for those of us who don't like the deep valleys of an icicle ceiling. The custom ceiling will still have texture, but not as dramatic or visually distracting. The room is calmer, and I no longer feel strafed by daggers.

Life is good.

Our upstairs walls & stairway wall are covered in plaster popcorn-y (more like thorny!) texture that is just awful---I brushed my arm against the stairway wall once and almost bled. I'd like to kill whoever made those walls LOL. They were hE[[ to paint too. And they crumble if you're not careful (and if you have a cat who thinks they're for scratching).