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We were contacted by a young couple who had just purchased a new (to them) home. It was initially built in the 1980s and had popcorn ceilings. These were routinely installed on all ceilings in that time period. The idea was that it gave the ceiling some texture that provided some acoustical buffering as well as a non-boring visual element.

What Is a Popcorn Ceiling?

According to Wikipedia, these are also known as stipple ceilings, stucco ceilings, or acoustic ceilings. These were generally applied with a spray-on kind of coating. Over time these ceilings tend to get scratched up, stained from water leaking in from above, or splashed up from below and it’s almost impossible to repair a small section without it looking like it’s been replaced or repaired. Eventually, the popcorn material will need to be removed and the ceiling re-finished with something else.

Anyway, the new homeowners wanted the popcorn ceiling removed. In their case, it had become yellowed and scratched up in several places.

Popcorn ceilings have also fallen out of style and the homeowners want to keep up with the latest trends.

Popcorn Ceiling Removal

We sent in our best team of ceiling removal experts to handle the job. First, they had to cover the entire floor with disposable plastic sheeting and tape that all down. The idea is that all the popcorn material will fall onto the plastic sheets, which can then simply be rolled up and discarded with the removed materials still in them. The ceiling must be sprayed with water first, to loosen up the texturing materials. Then you can just take a large joint knife or scraper and just scrape it all off. Here’s a couple of shots of the popcorn being removed.

After the popcorn has been scraped off the team has to cover the newly exposed ceiling with something new because otherwise it looks ugly and you can see the drywall tape and screws and stuff like that. So, our team gave the ceiling an “orange peel” texture, primed it, and painted it white. It’s called orange peel because the final texture should resemble that of the peel of an orange, only usually, it’s a different color.

Refinishing the Ceiling 

Applying the orange peel texture involves spraying the new texture material onto the ceiling, allowing it to dry, applying a coat of primer, which is also sprayed on, and then painting. For the ceiling, paint is usually applied with a sprayer, as well, at least when professional painters are doing the work. Do it yourselfers might instead use a roller, but that can be haphazard. Use a little too much paint and you may have paint dripping down onto your head, rather than just dripping down the wall. For this reason always make sure you have covered everything, including the floor with a drop cloth, or just leave that plastic sheeting in place until you are all done with everything. You also have to be careful around the edges, as there are walls that you may not be painting the same color, so you will want to avoid getting paint on those, too. Lots of that blue painter’s tape should do the job.

When it’s all finished it should look like this:

Now it’s a nice, reasonably smooth, freshly painted ceiling.

These photos are all from the actual job described above where we scraped off the popcorn ceiling.

The homeowners are very happy with their new ceilings. If you want to have some old popcorn ceilings scraped off and re-finished please contact Excellent Painters in Colorado. We are always available to provide you with a free estimate for your job. We also provide free estimates for exterior and interior painting as well as commercial painting, in case your business needs a makeover.