Scraping Popcorn
Posted by Wayne
One of the biggest projects I’ve undertaken thus far was the removal of the acoustic “popcorn” ceilings which covered every ceiling in the house. This is a great way to update a house so I was eager to get started, even though I had heard bad things about the actual work (namely that it was very messy).
After doing a bit of research I learned that this acoustic texture can have asbestos if your house was built before 1974 (and even some time after), so you should get it tested before undertaking this process. If I had known more about asbestos I would have been more careful about the year of the house I bought. Thankfully our house was built in 1980 so I’m fairly certain I was safe (cough, wheez).
I bought a small garden sprayer (similar to what is pictured below), found my trusty 5″ paint scraper, a ladder, a bucket, a mask, and goggles. I covered the floor with plastic, fearing the mess that was to come. I filled the sprayer up with water and a little bit of dish soap, and I was ready to spray.
I chose to use a smaller hand held scraper (not shown) because we were planning on leaving the ceilings smooth so I wanted to be careful with the ceiling (I wouldn’t be re-applying texture afterwards, so it was more important not to gouge anything). I basically divided the ceiling into quadrants and sprayed down 1/4 of the ceiling with the water/soap mixture. The popcorn texture scraped off very easily about 1 minute after being sprayed. I held a bucket with one hand and scraped with the other, catching the material that was falling to reduce the mess.
Scraping the popcorn ceilings was a piece of cake. Eventually I realized that the stuff wasn’t even hurting the carpet so I stopped laying down plastic as I moved from room to room. I was catching 95% of the material in my bucket anyways. By the last room I could easily scrape a 12ft. x 12ft. room in an hour.
The bad news (there’s always bad news) was that the guys who put up the drywall in the house did a half-assed job with the seams in the ceiling because they were very visible once the texture was removed. The time I spent fixing these seams can only be described as pure misery.
Every seam in the ceiling of the house had to be sanded down and re feathered. This is very hard work and I would get so sweaty sanding the seams that goggles became useless as they’d fog up instantly. I had to let the powder fine dust fall right into my eyes as I sanded. This was extremely irritating, especially because I wear contacts. I was dripping sweat being close to the ceiling in a humid room, so my shirt would get wet and fill up with the dust and get stiff as a board. My neck killed from staring up at the ceiling, my shoulders ached from the constant sanding. I can’t describe how miserable doing this was.
I was very happy with the end result, but it was a ton of work. It made a huge difference in the house. I think if I could do it over again I might think about putting some minor texture back onto the ceiling to eliminate a lot of the work I had to do.
Total Cost: $40 (sprayer), Total Time: Scraping = 12 hours, refinishing seams = 40 hours
One Response to “Scraping Popcorn”
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February 29th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Man, this takes me back, and possibly, forward. I’m a semi-seasoned diy’er, I’ve never really done professional work, but I’ve remodeled many a room, so the woes of drywall (mudding, sanding, sanding, mudding, sanding, sanding, mud mud, sand sand) are an old freind of mine. The mess is horrendus, but it’s always gratifying when the project is finished. The hidden surprises that always arise in a project are nightmares that are usually just time consuming, but still a pain in the ass. Love the blog man, keep it going for handyman at home.