Patching and Plastering - Textured Paint, Plaster, or Cake Frosting, help?

I am new here and see many have similar concerns with textured walls, how do I figure out whether the cake frosting like wall texture all over our house is textured paint or plaster? It seems to come off easily in large sheets with a putty knife, but our house is huge, and after removing a wall of it I read it could have asbestos in it? How do I determine what this stuff is and whether I should worry about it? Also, any chance it could just be wallpapered over?

Welcome to the forums!

Could you post a pic or two using a free site like Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket (http://www.photobucket.com?)

Generally the only texture that had asbestos in it is the old popcorn ceilings. Asbestos was banned from texture in the late 70's although supplies were allowed to be used up. Basically if the house was built 1982 or later, it is considered to be asbestos free.

How are you removing the texture? if it comes off in large sheets it sounds like it doesn't have a good bond with wall. If the texture is prone to come off - paint or paper applied over it may also come loose :eek:

House was built in 1901 but added on to and altered over time in many directions, it may have started off as two units and grew to be an "apartment" house, still have numbers over the bedroom doors and each bedroom appears to have been altered to include a "kitchenette" ie a sink area and woodstove area, so there are rooms in the rooms. The textured finish looks just like really thick cake icing, picture a cake iced by a 4 year old, and I am praying it was used in the late 80's or even 90's. Very bizarre house and I will post pictures shortly!

http://forum.doityourself.com/electrical-c-d-c/400914-how-put-pictures-your-post.html

This is a good instruction sheet on how to post pics.....

Sorry that took so long.

I am hoping by the looks of things that the plaster wall texture was added more recently than asbestos was banned in an effort to conceal cracking/bulging in the walls of this 1901 house. One clue is that the plaster/textured paint is peeling only in one room, an un-ventilated bathroom upstairs, where steam collects on ceiling. The plaster/textured stuff was applied with uniform lack of finess throughout. Hideous, but I have to find a way to live with it....or spend enormous effort resurfacing everywhere, even in closets!

Pictures by shelleyhouse - Photobucket (http://s891.photobucket.com/albums/ac113/shelleyhouse/)

I don't think that texture is original to the house. It looks like it might be thinned down joint compound applied with a shagy roller..... but generally when someone uses texture to hide defects in the plaster - they don't bother with the closets.

Too bad. Probably somebody was bothered by cracks or other problems in the plaster and covered it up. They probably thought it looked better than what was there. Maybe it does.

If it comes off in sheets consider yourself lucky. Get good at taking it off. You can probably learn some tricks. One thing is maybe it will come off more easily if you wet it. Scrape through some of the paint then wet it and see.

I think is you pile more stuff on it to smooth it out you will sooner or later, probably sooner, have even worse problems with it letting loose.