Popcorn ceiling?
Question:How can I remove the popcorn ceiling in my home? Is it easy to do or is it something a professional should do?
Answers:
Some answers have addressed your question accurately, but I'll bring the relevant points together. First, the popcorn texture can contain asbestos fibers -- especially if it was applied prior to the 80s -- so wear a specific respirator for asbestos removal if you do it yourself. Mask off your walls with a light gauge poly (1 mil) and floors with 4 mil poly sheeting. Put water in a spray bottle and wet an area, let soak, and then wet again as you scrape it off. If the texture has never been painted it will come off easily with a 6 to 10 inch broad knife. If it's been painted, it will be tougher getting it off. Sand any areas that need further work to get them smooth. After the texture has been removed, carefully remove the wall poly and lay it on the floor. Then fold the floor poly toward the center keeping the texture and wall poly inside the 4 mil floor poly. This keeps it encased for proper disposal. You might have to skim the ceiling to get it smooth enough for whatever texture you now desire, maybe not. Protect walls and floor again if needed. It can be done, but it's not for the faint of heart. I'd let the professionals do it, and I do professionals -- not jake-legs.
wow! how did you get popcorn in the ceiling? to freakn cool! i want a poptart ceiling or ohhh maybe a tatertot ceiling! yum
If it was textured before 1980 I would be careful .. it is probably full of asbestos.
If not, you can simply scrape it with a wide putty knife or the ice breaker that are attached to a long 4 or 5 ft handle.
i have seen it done on DIY. it's very easy just time consuming, you basically use a spray bottle of water and a wide plastic putty knife looking thing that has a little catching design to it so the stuff doesnt fall all over the floor. since it is time consuming im sure you would end up paying a fortune for a pro, so do it yourself. just go to lowe's or home depot and ask for help with the scraper thingy so you use the right tools.
The problem you might encounter with scraping the popcorn off the ceiling is that your going to be left with very uneven textures on the ceiling. There really is no easy way to do that with out tearing down the whole ceiling and replacing it with new sheetrock, or spending many countless hours scraping and dry-walling. Unless your good with that kind of work I would leave it to a professional. If you just want to make it look nicer, you can paint it, and add more popcorn, you can find that at a local shop like lows, or home depot.
you got some good answers, i charge plenty to do this as there is a risk of asbestos, you have to cover everything and when you are done clean everything up well, including the tops of doors, wrap everything up in plastic and you will discover why it is so expensive when you go to dispose of suspected asbestos...you really need a professional, that is why there are laws in place and pros have the required training.
im doing that to my house to!
first, you should put plastic on the walls and floor because if you don't it sticks EVERYWHERE!!!!!1
THen, you should get a spray bottle and spray the ceiling and scrape it off with anything flat... best if some sort of scraper(better if long)
once you have done the entire ceiling, you should call and have someone retexture your ceiling..
Hope this helps!
OKAY. my husband used a flat edged shovel for the large rooms, and I followed behind with a putty knife to clean up around the edges. In our case, the popcorn was falling off already so it was quite easy to remove. I have seen it done using a wallpaper steamer (loosens the bond between the ceiling and the popcorn)
Of course, we wore resporators, goggles, and swept/mopped VERY well before letting our kids back in the house, and we hired a painter to come re-texture and spray paint all the walls. It was very time consuming, but well worth it. Our real estate agent said it added 10,000. to our asking price, because it modernized the home.
ok i can really answer this question i just did it a week ago i tried a flat lawn edger to start spent about 4 to 5 hrs just getting at the popcorn not all of the plaster or whatever it is it got fine dust EVERYWHERE!! going thru the vents all over the house what ever you do block off the area with plastic i'm still cleaning that crap up too.
anyway then i descided to get up on a ladder spritzed the ceiling like 4 to 5 times let it set for 30 seconds then scraped it with a 7" wide putty knife and it came off so easily in huge chunks like 2 ft long.
my suggestion is use plastic over every doorway cover the floors and have a shop vac ready that has a good clean filter that blocks fine dust get a a good wide putty knife benchscraper whatever you have that thin and flat and have a water spritzer bottle ready
it's easy to do as long as you take the proper precautions to protect the rest of your house from dust once you do it'll be a cake walk and it's kinda satisfying to say you did it yourself
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