When I moved into my house the ceiling was cracked from the ceiling fan out to the walls in two directions. I don't want to put new wall board up and repairing the crack is not possible according to my Husband. What are some ways to cover the ceiling up?
Get some plaster or drywall mud and fill it in. It won't fix the problem but it will get rid of the crack. Paint over it and be done with it.
These cracks should be repairable unless they are structural damage. All you need to do is clean out all loose debris from the crack and repair with joint compound and tape. Go to your local home improvement store and look at their books on drywall repair
If the ceiling is still shifting, it will crack again, no matter what you do. If not, then you might be able to fix it with joint compound and drywall tape. I don't know if it's the same, but we recently had a crack going from ceiling to floor. We had a drywall guy come out, who made the crack a little bigger, then remudded and retaped and retextured. (Actually, the problem was that it hadn't been taped the first time.)
What you have to do is scape about 12 inches on each side of the crack. Tape and float with drywall tape and joint compound. If you have popcorn (acoustic) texture, that's better. Popcorn texture covers up all the imperfections you might leave. Once finished floating just shoot your texture. Since you probably don't have the tools. It's really not that expensive to do. Maybe$150 to $225. depending on the area your in and the size of the cracks. I recommend you get a drywall guy to come to your house and fix it, Try to get somebody to do it on a side job and not a company. Good luck. Jorge Flores Professional Painting and Remodeling co.
It's possible the crack is caused by someone/something in the attic, if that is above. If so, don't walk up there and crack should not occur again. If not an attic above, but another floor instead, it's possible that something/somebody heavy caused the crack. Lastly, it could be the floor joists/ceiling joists are insufficient to support the weight on them, including the cracked sheetrock. If this is true, you have a structural problem that will probably continue to cause overhead sheetrock cracks. However, repairing the present cracks is not that difficult. Best idea is to use a utility knife/box cutter to dig a shallow V shaped groove along the crack, then use joint compound and paper tape as with any sheetrock finish work. Another less messy option is to use fiberglass self-sticking mesh tape, sold for sheetrock finishing, and joint compound over that. Some practive to feather all edges is needed or the results could be as bad or worse than your cracks. If you just can't do any of the above, a thin bead of silicone caulk pressed into and along the crack, can mask the worst of the crack!
