Probably the most unique feature of a Terra-Dome style home is the domed, concrete ceiling. Concrete is not normally used for ceilings in a home, and there are probably good reasons for that. As you can see above, it leaves a lot of air bubbles, form lines, small cracks, and a bit of discoloration. I have to admit, I don't remember even looking at the finish on the ceilings of the other houses we toured before we built ours. I remember one builder telling us how he trowel finished the ceilings with a product called
structo-lite. I tried to find it, but it was not locally available, and I didn't want to buy it over the
Internet. Anyway, I knew I didn't want to spend my time hand troweling, or paying someone to do that much work. Unlike the walls, I did not want to make the ceilings smooth. I tried to find another way. Below are the results of my experiments.
The first attempt was made when we had a deadline for the 4
th of July party last year. I was able to hire a crew of 2 to spray on a drywall mixture for about 1/2 of the house. It looks OK, but it did not fill in the air holes very well. It wasn't cheap either. I will eventually have to go back and fill in all of those holes by hand.
My next attempt was to stay on the floor and use a long pole to roll on Dry-Lock waterproofing paint. I put on 2 coats because the first coat was too thin to hide the color of the concrete. The truth is, I may need to put a third coat someday, but it looks pretty good otherwise. The problem is that it looks like I couldn't decide between a smooth and textured look, so it does neither very well. It also left a lot of air holes unfilled.
My final technique involved putting one coat of Dry-Lock to seal the concrete, and then getting on the scaffold to use a 4" brush to apply a textured ceiling paint. I like this the most. It fills in almost all of the little air holes, smooths out a lot of the form lines, and was not expensive. It was time consuming, but once I got into a
rhythm, it moved along nicely. The hardest part was lifting my arm above my head for so long. I guess it really wasn't that much different from hand troweling after all.
Probably the most unique feature of a Terra-Dome style home is the domed, concrete ceiling. Concrete is not normally used for ceilings in a home, and there are probably good reasons for that. As you can see above, it leaves a lot of air bubbles, form lines, small cracks, and a bit of discoloration. I have to admit, I don't remember even looking at the finish on the ceilings of the other houses we toured before we built ours. I remember one builder telling us how he trowel finished the ceilings with a product called structo-lite. I tried to find it, but it was not locally available, and I didn't want to buy it over the Internet. Anyway, I knew I didn't want to spend my time hand troweling, or paying someone to do that much work. Unlike the walls, I did not want to make the ceilings smooth. I tried to find another way. Below are the results of my experiments.
The first attempt was made when we had a deadline for the 4th of July party last year. I was able to hire a crew of 2 to spray on a drywall mixture for about 1/2 of the house. It looks OK, but it did not fill in the air holes very well. It wasn't cheap either. I will eventually have to go back and fill in all of those holes by hand.
My next attempt was to stay on the floor and use a long pole to roll on Dry-Lock waterproofing paint. I put on 2 coats because the first coat was too thin to hide the color of the concrete. The truth is, I may need to put a third coat someday, but it looks pretty good otherwise. The problem is that it looks like I couldn't decide between a smooth and textured look, so it does neither very well. It also left a lot of air holes unfilled.
My final technique involved putting one coat of Dry-Lock to seal the concrete, and then getting on the scaffold to use a 4" brush to apply a textured ceiling paint. I like this the most. It fills in almost all of the little air holes, smooths out a lot of the form lines, and was not expensive. It was time consuming, but once I got into a rhythm, it moved along nicely. The hardest part was lifting my arm above my head for so long. I guess it really wasn't that much different from hand troweling after all.
