Removing and retexturing a popcorn ceiling

E

El_Guapo

500+ Posts
Anybody ever done it? How much of a pain would this be? What do you use to scrape off the old stuff? How much of a mess is this going to make? How much skill is required to retexture with Monterry drag, and what kind of equipment do I need?

Most importantly, any rough idea how much it would cost to hire somebody to do this for a 2400 sq. foot house?
 
I looked into this a while ago but didn't follow through. First, if your house is older than 1978 or so, you should probably check for asbestos. Call up an abatement company and make some inquiries.

To remove, you usually lay down plastic sheets and just spray on water. The stuff turns to goop and you scrape off with a putty knife. An apparently easy process but very messy. If you have a vaulted ceiling it will probably takes some tape work as well. It's more difficult if someone has painted over the popcorn texture.

Didn't get further than that. You might look into insulating paint as well.
 
I'm in San Diego, but this might give you an idea:

I just had it done, 1800 sf condo with vaulted ceilings. They charged $1700 to scrape and retexture, and wanted another $600 to paint. I chose to do the paint myself. Remember, the surface must be primed/sealed before painting a finish coat.
 
JM: you cannot retexture over acoustic "popcorn" ceilings with anything but another coat of the same stuff.

You can, however, paint the stuff to freshen it up a bit.
 
Just finished this exact same project in my 1975 house. We had crows feet walls and popcorn ceilings scraped, retextured (all as orange peel, opted not to do knock-down texture), and painted.

You can scrape it yourself pretty easily. It makes a huge mess with texture dust everywhere (you may want to have your vents cleaned when it's all done). Just get a water bottle that mists, spray the old texture, and scrape off with a thin masonry flat.

The trick with re-texturing is that you need a compressor (to blow air). You mix up your texture in a bucket, put it in a special hopper that you hook to a compressor, and let it spit it on the desired surface. For orange peel texture, go over it with a roller. For knock-down texture, use your masonry flat.

The reason I paid someone to texture is that the best way to screw it up is to apply the texture unevenly. Even istribution takes experience. If you can practice on someone else's house, maybe that's the way to go.

We just remodeled about 600 square feet (3 bathrooms, and a master bedroom) and paid to have wallpaper removed from the bathrooms, other walls and ceilings scraped, re-textured and painted. Also our front door was stripped and re-painted. The whole thing cost $1100, and they did a good job. Ask around and you might find some deals.
 
one of the jobs i did in reburbing my house over the last 2 yrs was to retextur the ceiling in my spare bedroom that is used as our computer room.

after scraping off the old stuff, nasty job i might add, i used joint compound to retexture the ceiling.

i did this as i did not like the pop corn look and found this to be a fairly easy and inexpensive solution that looks much better than the popcorn. here's what i did.....

i used several methods to get the joint compound up on the ceiling, the easiest being to use a vinyl pot scrubber, one of those mesh like things that cost about 50 cents ea. i just loaded it up and spread it over the ceiling. you can dab the area to get a peaked look or you can swirl it around. i like the combo look myself and it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. if you don't like it just move the compound around some and do it again. another option that i used on my half bath was buy a texure roller from home depot, it's has loops on it and you use it like a paint roller. it gives a pretty uniform look and once again, if you don't like it just add more compound and do it over till you get what you want.

you could try doing a test on a old piece of plywood to get the hang of using this technique.

i love the look of this, it's not hard to do and joint compound is cheap, 5 gals for about ten bucks. after it dries, prime it good and paint, i put two coats on. get a roller designed for ceilings, it'll save you alot of work and time.

good luck.....
 
You can get an asbestos test kit at Home Depot or the like. You scrape off some samples and send them off to a lab. Within a week they send back the results. The textured ceiling in my parent's house had asbestos in it, but not as much as the bottomside of an old vinyl floor.
 
Thanks, guys. Lots of very helpful info here.

It sounds like something that's doable ourselves, but I suspect that due to time constraints we're going to have to hire this out if we decide to do it.

Here's another question. Assuming we do have it retextured, what color should we paint it - should it be the standard acoustic white or should it match the wall color? Seems like a lot of new construction houses I'm seeing these days are using the same color for the walls and ceilings. Right now it's standard acoustic white. I think I generally prefer the white ceilings but not so much that I'm married to the idea.
 
No, you need to two-tone the paint.

Classic look is Swiss Coffee on the lid, and navajo white on the walls. Gives a really rich look. Paint the base and case with a swiss coffee semi gloss, and you're tits.
 
I have been sort of debating this myself.

GREAT TO KNOW about the test kit at home depot!!!

I was going to do a bathroom first as a test. however I am almost thinking for all the vaulted ceiling I have in the two living areas i might just say screw it and rock over everything. Hell it can't be that much difference in price when I start taking in mess and man hours into account.

The SMARTEST thing I did do when I bought this house was rent a commercial grade sprayer and buy a couple of those 10 gallon latex paint buckets and go apeshit on the ceiling and walls. So while I have the darned acoustical texture it is a nice bright white rather than a dulling grey.

If you want some REAL FUN try using a roller and trying to paint the popcorn texture.
 
Yikes. The first bid on this job came in last night. $5500. About double what I was exepcting.

I believe I can live with the popcorn for that kind of money. Or maybe just do it myself at some point.
 
OK, if this stuff has been painted over, does the spraying with water trick not work? Apparently part of it's painted and part of it's not.

One guy's trying to tell me you can just knock off the bumps and you'll end up with a close approximation to drag. Sounds suspicious to me.

If it has to be scraped dry, is there any trick to it other than getting a blade of some kind and a dust mask? What about some kind of commercial sander or something?

$5500 is ridiculous. This is one of those times I wish I lived in Houston. I understand you can get stuff like this done dirt cheap there.
 
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