Popcorn ceilings

[echotrail]

My wife wants to update our home (She means me)and flatten out the popcorn sprayed ceilings. She says on the Home and Garden Cable channel they used a spray bottle with water, wet an area and used a large blade putty knife to flatten out the popcorn. Has anyone heard of this or done it? I told her I would try it in a closet, but if it doesn't work she can get a part time job to pay to have it resprayed. Thats when I got "The eye".

[Macgyver55]

It actually works pretty good. Spray it a bit, let it soak a minute and use a wide putty knife to scrape it off. A little experimenting will teach you how big of an area to work with at your speed. The hardest part is working with your arms over your head and it is a bit messy. Or, You could do what I did and paid my 16 year old daughter 50 bucks to do it.

When you are done you'll probably have to do some touch up with spackle, then paint or have knock down put on as you choose.

[hartner62]

Has the ceiling been painted?

[sparcebag]

GOOD LUCK! I've done it TOO many times,lots of bad language,lots of mess, lots of work.NEVER AGAIN Will I attempt it.

[Neighbor_guy]

I charge a lot of $$$$ for this job. Scrape it down, then skin coat, sand, and paint the entire thing. Time, mess, and missery are in your future.

HGTV the bain of husbands everywere.

[icechipper]

Depends on if it has been painted for one, if it has you will have to sand all of the texture off no scraping will work, if it hasn't been painted you could wet it down and then scrape it off, I would suggest a sprayer for like spraying weeds, where you can pump it up and spray it. Best bet is to get it soaked to the point where it comes off easy and down to the rock, to little water and it leaves a slight coating on the ceiling, to much it gets into the paper of the sheet rock and then you have a mess of skimming mud over your mistakes and sanding. If you do it I would recommend a 10" or 12" taping knife, this will prevent you from gouging to much into the existing sheet rock and will help you speed up the process. One thing to consider is the original mud job, if it was a bad original job you will have to put on some mud and do some sanding before priming and painting. Best of luck.

[Tom7227]

Simpler solution - use the parent control and cut off access to HGTV.

[echotrail]

Tom2727: Your idea is intriguing but payback is a b.... The thought of loosing my FSN....well I just can't risk it.

[Farmboy1]

Another option to scraping is to go and rent a Porter Cable Vacum Sander. It is a sander on a pole that hooks directly up to a vacum keeping the dust to a minimum. A little practice, more then a few sanding discs, and you will wear your popcorn right off. If done properly, you should save youself the hassle of skim coating the entire ceiling, but some touch ups will problably be needed as it can be tough to get used to using the power sander.

I don't know if anyone other then Porter Cable makes one, that is just the ones we have and use. After using one, anyone who hand sands is behind the times. We have 3 at work, and never again will I use a regular pole/

Convince the wife it will keep dust down (it will) and the $100 or whatever it costs to rent is money well spent.

[echotrail]

Thanks farmboy1. I looked up the Porter Cable Vacum Sander on the internet and I like the idea of using it. The sites all show round sanding disks. Is there a rectangle attachemnt and sanding disk for getting into corners? Thanks all for responding.

[Farmboy1]

Nope, corners have to be done by hand. The amount of labor you save on the main ceiling can be used in the corners!

Actualy there is not much area that you cannot get to with it, but you will have to run a regular pole sander or sanding block along all the corners at walls, and the corners of the room.

One word of warning, keep it on slow while you get the hang of using it. There is a dial on the wand that you can adjust, but if you have it too fast, you can cause some damage before you even know it.

[2dog]

I did my condo last year, what a job, lots of choice swear words were said. I'm glad I did it but I don't know if I would ever tackle it again. If the popcorn textured ceiling was put up before the early 1980s, the texturing material may contain asbestos.Luckily mine tested clean.

My ceiling was previously painted so it made it much harder. I would first wet a 6 foot square area down with a quart hand sprayer with hot water and a bit of dawn soap and take a 3 inch putty knife and scrape down the first layer. Then rewet it and wait about 10 minutes and slowly scrape it. If you get it to wet it soaks through to the sheet rock and then you tend to gouge the paper on the rock.

I seen it on tv were they made it look super easy. Maybe if they had never been painted it might be that easy. It sure didn't work that way for me.

[reddog]

If they havent been painted, wetting and scraping is the way to go.