Removed wainscoting - Will I need to sand the entire wall?

Question

First time DIY'er here and I decided it was time to update my office by removing the wainscoting and giving it a fresh coat of paint. However, before I get there, I was hoping for a little feedback...

I have removed the wood paneling and to my surprise, it actually had a texture that matches the top half ... Also, I have had no problems sanding down the panel adhesive that was left behind. Might be difficult to tell by the pictures, but the wall feels really smooth in those blemish areas on the bottom half. And then of course I will go over all of those with joint compound and another round of sanding to make sure the wall is nice and smooth.

So that being said, when all is said and one, my goal is that the wall should have one consistent texture from top to bottom. I plan on adding texture to the wall using a textured roller during priming/painting.

My Question ... Given what I described above and based on the photo, will I need to sand down the top half of the wall before I start priming/painting in order for the texture to remain consistent? Or, would that be overkill and I can achieve my goal simply by using the roller over both halves.

Note, I'm asking this because as much as the general texture of the bottom half matches the top half, there are quite a few smoothed out blemishes and I just don't know if all those blemishes will be obvious unless I sort of smooth out the top half as well (sort of like starting from scratch if that makes sense).

Sorry for the long post, thanks for any advice.

Answer 1

It looks like a sanded finish, mix a little paint with some fine sand and dab it on the smooth spots with your fingertip, it won't be a perfect match since the original has a number of coats of paint on it but it will break up the smooth. No need to sand the whole wall, Wipe the spots you touched up with spackle with a damp sponge to remove the excess spackle leaving only the smooth area before you apply the sand/paint mix.

Don't concern yourself with textured rollers or anything like that. What isherwood says about the rollers will work very well. You will need about a 1/2 cup of you wall paint and maybe a tablespoon or two of fine sand, that much is ON the floor of the big box stores where the play sand is kept, make sure it is like table salt, not rock salt or even coarse salt and mix it in the 1/2 cup of paint. Like I said, it will not be a match for the texture completely, but it will help blend in the patch to the surrounding area. Again, hard to reproduce what years of paint will do to a surface.

I need to stress that this is only for the areas where the small blemishes are, not for general painting of an area. Painting of texture over texture will give the results you would expect. If and areas have been sanded, which I think the band that is painted white looks as though it was sanded or scraped pretty hard, this may show up differently. If an area that big is painted with the sand mixture, it will look worse than what it does now, if I see it right. If it has not been sanded or scraped, great, just touch up the small blemishes you already filled. (I am thinking nail holes and such.

Again to stress the treatment of the blemishes. Spackle always covers a larger area than needed. It is just the way it goes. After I do a wall repair on a textured wall, I wipe/wash the repair so the spackle (I use joint compound) so all the excess is gone from the surface of the texture, well maybe a little stays... and that will leave only the immediate area of the repair to re-texture. Brushes or rollers are too big to do this type of touch up and will get the new texture on the original and make the repairs more detectable. "Touching it on" with you finger will or should give you complete control how big or how thick or how much you apply on the small blemishes.

Answer 2

Sanding the adhesive spots may not have been the best approach. As you've said, you now have smooth patches in your textured wall. Obviously you had to do something with them, but an adhesive remover solvent or some judicious scraping might've been better. I certainly wouldn't skim the wall as you describe above. That's going to make the problem worse. Smooth isn't your objective right now.

Sanding an entire wall sounds like a lot of work, even if you use an electric sander. I'd try to replicate the texture to repair the smooth spots. You might try dabbing on some drywall mud with a rag or brush. Once it dries, use a soft, lightly damp cloth to wipe the peaks off the new texture to make it match the old, painted texture. Prime and paint.

If you do opt to sand, a random-orbit palm sander with about 120 or 150 grit might do well. Wear suitable respiratory protection.