Grand Little Place

Sure you can live with a popcorn ceiling, but if it’s driving you crazy this easy, step-by-step guide for how to get rid of popcorn ceilings is for you!

For many of us living in the midwest popcorn ceilings are something we’ve inherited with our homes.  I know it’s just a ceiling but I hated them in my last house and hate them in my current home.  (Why were these ever considered a good idea?  I can’t help but feel like there is a fuzzy mustache on the top off all my rooms.  Yuck.)  From the moment we decided on this house I knew in my heart of hearts that we had to get rid of popcorn ceilings.  After my sister in law expressed interest in doing it in her new home we decided to try it out in my master bathroom because that room will eventually get a full reno down the line.  I figured that way if it was a disaster we didn’t have anything to lose.  The bathroom experiment proved to be a success and my sister in law went on to scrape (with the help of our entire family, lol) her whole house before they moved in.  Inspired by this experience I figured it was time for me start scraping the ceilings in my house!

How to get rid of popcorn ceilings:

1. Prep your space using plastic drop clothes and painters tape
2. Using a garden sprayer spray your ceiling and allow the water to soak into the popcorn
3. Take your mud knife and hold it at a 15 degree angle parrallel to the ceiling and push it across the ceiling, removing the popcorn as you go.
4. Work your way around the ceiling with the sprayer and mud knife
5. Remove shoes and roll up first layer of drop cloth.
6. Leave room and allow ceiling to fully dry
7. Spackle any gauges and allow to dry
8. Sand entire ceiling paying careful attention to any spots that needed spackling.
9. Wipe down walls
10. Roll up bottom layer of drop cloth and admire your work!
11. Paint your new SMOOTH ceiling!

Supplies needed:

• A garden sprayer
• Mud knife
• Mud Trowel
• Quick Dry Spackle
• sanding block
• Paper towels
• Plastic drop clothes
• Masking or Painters Tape
• Trash Bags
• Ladder or Scaffold

After my last try with it I think I’ve landed on the best way to prep your space so you have minimal clean up.  Prep will be key to your success when comes to how to get rid of popcorn ceilings.  The best way to save your floors and not waste time with clean up is to cover your floors with a plastic dropcloth.  I recommend disposable over cloth because all the bits of popcorn (which I think is some combo of spackle and styrofoam) will end up on that cloth and it’s a pain to wash.  Remove all pieces of furniture from your space.  If you have to keep furniture in the space you are scraping you need to make sure it is 100% covered with a drop cloth.  Once you have your floor covered with the plastic drop cloth go around the room and tape the drop cloth to the wall.  This will prevent you will large chunks of popcorn all around your baseboards.  It will also help by keeping the sanding dust off of your carpet.

I also covered the door to the room and the closet with drop clothes.  This helped keep the dust from leaving the room or entering the closet.

Now here’s the secret that I didn’t do the first time around, after you lay your dropcloth and have it taped to the walls go back and lay a SECOND plastic drop cloth on top of the first.  Go and head and tape this to the wall as well.  Don’t overlap your tape with the bottom drop cloth.  The reason we are going to lay 2 layers of drop cloth is because after you get done scraping the ceiling you will have giant chunks of mud on your drop cloth.  You won’t be able to walk across the room without getting it clumped on your foot.  By laying 2 layers of dropcloth you can pull up the top layer that is filled with the mud and have a clean surface to walk on.  As I said I didn’t do this and after I got all the popcorn off I was left with huge clumps of wet popcorn stuck to the bottom of my shoes.  In a desperate move I grabbed my roll of paper towels and rolled out a layer of paper towels on top of the mud so I had a cleaner surface to walk on.  It worked but I wouldn’t recommend it! Be smart and start by prepping 2 layers of drop cloth so you don’t end up scrambling like I did!

After your drop cloth has been laid it’s time to get to work.  Climb up your ladder with your garden sprayer and mud knife.  You will also want to have a mud tray and paper towels nearby.  Give your ceiling a good spray.  If you’ve ever taken down wallpaper this will be a similar experience.  The best way to get rid of popcorn ceilings is to saturate your ceiling.  I find that it’s best to spray the ceiling and let it sit and absorb and then scrape it.

You can see in the photo below how saturated the ceiling is compared to how it normally looks.  You want the popcorn to be wet to get it off the easiest and fastest.

After you have let the water absorb hold your mud knife parallel to the ceiling with the flat blade against the ceiling and push it gently along the ceiling.  The popcorn should fall right off.  If you haven’t revealed the drywall under the popcorn texture or any texture is still on the ceiling you need to use more water and spray again.  Don’t be afraid to soak the ceiling, drywall can withstand it and it doesn’t cause permanent damage.

In the photo below most of the popcorn and mud has been scraped off but this particular area would need another swipe or too to get it completely bare.  Any white areas that are on the ceiling when you’re done scraping will need to be sanded away for a smooth finish before painting.

When you get to the edges of the ceiling some of the popcorn may be stuck to the crevice from years of paint.  To remove that use the edge of your mud knife and score the edge of the ceiling line and the popcorn will come off.

Congrats, now you know how to scrape a drywall ceiling.  It really is as simple as those two steps – spray water and scrape.  Now go all around the ceiling and get off all the popcorn.

Once you have finished the ceiling, step off of your ladder and go to an edge of your drop cloth.  Carefully pull the tape from the wall and gently begin rolling up the top layer of your drop cloth.  Once you’ve revealed some of the bottom dropcloth I recommend taking your dirty shoes off and walking on the clean drop cloth in your socks or bare feet.  Set your dirty shoes on a towel to wash.  Walk around the room and roll the top drop cloth into itself and then go ahead and put it in a trash bag.

Now that you’ve scraped the ceiling and the popcorn is in the trash it’s time for a break while your ceiling drys out.  You will want to wait until the ceiling is 100% dry before moving onto the next step in the project – patch and sanding.  If you have a dehumidifier I’d go ahead and put it in the room to help absorb some of the extra moisture.  I didn’t do this and it is not necessary but if I had had one at the time I would have!  Once the drywall is dry take inventory of the ceiling for spots that may have been gauged during the scraping process.  It is inevitable that there will be some grooves from the scraping so take a few minutes and repair those with your spackle knife and some quick dry spackling.  You may also need to add additional spackle over the original nail or screw holes.  After your spackle has dried it’s time to sand the ceiling.  I recommend sanding the entire ceiling.  Yes it is tedious, but it will get you the best result.  For this room I used my sanding block and just went section by section with my ladder and hand sanded the room.

Expect the room to be DUSTY.  My camera lens was clear when I took these photos, the room just had a ton of dust.

Once your sanding is done you are in the home stretch, congratulations!  I may just be super messy, which is a definite possibility, but when I finished scraping and sanding the walls of my room were a little worse for the wear.  there were spots where the mud had left streaks down the wall and of course there was dust everywhere.  While your drop cloth is still on the ground go ahead and give your walls a quick sweep with a hand broom to get the dust off and then follow up with a quick wipe down with a damp rag.  This goes quick but helps quite a bit in the long run.  I’d also go ahead and wipe down your ladder or other tools to get the dust off of them so that you don’t track that through your house.  Once you’ve done that go ahead and set your tools out of the room and go ahead and pull up your bottom drop cloth.  Hopefully your tape has held and your floor is still clean!

Now you are done – congratulations!  You just got rid of popcorn ceilings and took on a job that most of us are intimidated by.  Pat yourself on the back, sit back and admire that clean scraped ceiling!

 

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