Have Your Popcorn Ceilings Removed

Popcorn ceilings are not applied on new homes much anymore, and for good reason.

They are unsightly, and hard to keep clean, in addition to crumbling off from time to time.

They also hold onto smells more than a conventional drywall mud ceiling that has been painted over.

In our day, we have spray painted over many popcorn ceilings with latex paint, that have yellowed or changed color over the years, and we still do.

That is one way of saving money.

But…

… if you really want to upgrade the interior of your home, and it has popcorn ceilings, then have it removed.

It will make all the difference in the world.

Why did they put that on in the first place?

Popcorn ceilings were used to help home builders stop sound travel and it was a great fire retardant before the 1980’s because it was made of asbestos.

After the 1980’s they stopped making it out of asbestos because laws prohibited it use, but they just made it out of other materials.

First Things First

Your popcorn ceilings should be checked to see if they were made of asbestos before you go any further.

You can have a professional come in check your ceilings or you can get a testing kit from the hardware and send in samples to a lab.

Make sure you use appropriate gear such as gloves, dust mask and eye protection.

If it tests positive, then have a professional licensed in asbestos removal take it down. You can then hire us to texture and paint over the new ceiling.

If it tests negative, then we can remove it, texture and paint it for you.

On the left is the garden variety of sprayer and on the right is the sprayer applying a mist of plain old water.

On the left, after letting the water soak in you can scrape | on the right, after sanding the dry ceiling, apply a paint primer.

The Process of Removal

All the furniture needs to be removed.

The walls and floors need to be protected because it is a very messy job.

All the electric boxes and light fixtures need to be removed or covered completely.

We will then spray out the ceilings with a water mist from a new, Clean Garden Sprayer, because scaping is much easer if it is wet.

We are careful not get to much water on it, or it could damage the drywall underneath.

Using scrapers of various sizes, we will then scrap it down.

We let the ceilings dry overnight, and then the next day we sand the ceilings smooth and then apply a flat primer paint.

After the primer dry’s, we then, proceed with spraying a new texture, knockdown or skip trowel on a new one.

Many people like to have the new ceiling have the same texture that the walls have on them.

We recommend using a flat finish paint on the ceiling because it will not show imperfections like an eggshell or semi-gloss will, because of the sheen.

Now you have a new ceiling in addition to freshly coated walls and doors if you want.

That’s enough to improve anyone’s frame of mind about their home and castle.

Give us a call if you are considering having this done, for a free estimate.

We would love to talk with you about your ideas for an upgrade.

We have written many articles that are professional painting related by going here to AZ SRB Painting Blogs