Ceiling Prep Before Painting

"Ok, our first step in our bedroom project is going to be addressing the ceiling. Its fairly common in an old place like this for you to get a lot of cracks. Essentially what's happening is the plaster is separated from the material underneath it and hence we get a lot of cracks. So I'm going to show you how to address that. We'll be taping those cracks up and applying some joint compound to patch them up nice and smooth out that ceiling. Ok, I've laid out the tools that we'll be using to address the ceiling situation. I've got my tape, my joint compound and various shovels which I'll be using to apply it with. I've got a dust mask and a scraper. Ok, the first thing we're going to do is attack these cracks, give them a good scraping down. I want to get rid of all the chips and such that have formed up there. So, make sure you have a good dust mask and you might even want to have a pair of goggles on hand. So I'm just going to go up. So essentially what's happened here is the ceiling is separated from the lass underneath and that's why we're getting these cracks. Ok, that's pretty good. Ok, as you can see we created quite a mess here. Paint chips everywhere. And the reason I didn't put a drop cloth down is because this is a lot easier way of cleaning up. If you put the drop cloth down, you'll probably have a heck of a time trying to get all the chips off. So with a good hardwood floor like this, its just a matter of sweeping it up. If you have a vacuum, that will work too. You always want to keep your workspace as clean as possible."