A Textured Ceiling Project – Get Your Popcorn Ready

Textured ceilings used to be extremely popular, now not so much. We get a lot of calls to have the texture removed.

First some basics. There are 2 types of texture that were popular – “popcorn” and stipple. Stipple refers to actual plaster that has had texture added with a brush or other tool. Removing stipple is arduous – you just have to grind through the texture – there are no shortcuts. Popcorn is a much lighter and faster product that is sprayed directly on the sheetrock and does not need to be painted.

We have sometimes been told that popcorn is easy to remove – “it just scrapes off”. That is sometimes true. However, if the ceiling was ever painted, or if the ceiling was primed before the popcorn was applied it will be much more difficult. In either case, however, the real work starts once the scraping is finished. Builders do not have to properly finish the sheetrock if popcorn was going to be applied. Popcorn hides a multitude of sins. Many bumps and seams will be visible if you just paint right after scraping. Much of the ceiling (sometimes all of it) will need to be skim coated with sheetrock compound. Doing this requires a level of skill and it is twice as hard on the ceiling. Then the ceiling will be sanded, primed, probably need the skim coating touched up in places and 2 coats of paint applied.

This can be a very messy process. We like to say it’s like going to the beach – you will get sand in places you didn’t know you have. It is impossible to make this a dust-free process, but a professional painter will use the proper masking, sanding equipment, vacuum, and products to minimize the dust. If the walls are not being painted (as in this case) they must be protected.