Goodbye Popcorn!

It's time to say goodbye. To popcorn ceilings. 

I get why builders do it,  it's easy and it hides the flaws. But dammit people,  they are so ugly and they hold in smells like nobodies business.

Project # 9,234,140,1923.5 
(the .5 is for all the ones we haven't quiiiiite finished yet)

March 2012 - Scraping the ceilings in the living room, dining room, kitchen and hallway. 

We have a goal: Get rid of the popcorn ceilings, the nasty-ass stinky smelly stained carpet, and fix the jacked up walls. Small goal right? 

So on my birthday, we began the first phase of this project.. the ceilings. This really isn't a difficult project, its just a little (okay, a lot) messy.

After removing everything from the spaces, taping off the electrical outlets & covering the floors with plastic, we filled up the lawn sprayer with water, grabbed a putty knife, and went to town. 

We tag teamed this part of the game - one person spraying water while the other scraped down the wet spots. 

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

You want to make sure you get all the pieces off. Some are more stubborn than others, but once you've gotten it wet, it all comes off pretty easily.

Once all the popcorn is gone and you have rid your house of the smell of the last 30+ years of who knows what you are ready to start repairs. 

(Seriously, I think the people that lived here before us hoarded cats, fried everything they ate, and smoked like chimneys. At least that's how it smelled to me.)

You'll need to get a drywall sanding tool and some screen. We already owned these little gems from previous projects. Put the sanding tool on the extendy pole and go to town. Get all the bumps and pieces that you may have missed with the scraping, you want this to be as smooth as possible. We also spent a few days fixing spots where the house had settled and you could see the seams. Drywall mud. Sand. Repeat.

Once you have everything repaired and smooth, you are ready to put up the new ceiling texture! (Don't skimp on this part or you will regret it. Spend the time to make sure everything is smooth and pretty). We chose to go with the knock down texture because we like the finish and it still hides flaws. 

We bought the spray hopper for 70 bucks from Lowe's (or you can rent, but we have more rooms to do in the future, so buying was smarter for us). We also bought a "knock down knife" which was a trip for the sales people to try to find. Apparently not a lot of people decide to do crazy shit like this themselves. Must be nice to have a few extra grand laying around to pay people to do this kind of stuff. 

Tools you need: a big container of drywall mud, the spray hopper, air compressor, air hose, and knock down knife/large trowel, blue painters tape, and a LOT MORE PLASTIC.

We taped off everything. The walls, the floor, the dog, Oh wait... This took some time, but trust me when I say, its so worth it for clean up purposes. Otherwise you wind up with textured everything. 

N spent quite a bit of time playing with the sprayer to get the texture he wanted. Mix the drywall mud with water until it gets to the consistency you need (it tells you on the box). Then just grab a spare piece of drywall or wood and practice. 

Once he had that sorted out, he began the spray process.  Here are some shots of the texture up on the ceiling, before the paint - 

Let it dry for a few minutes (5-10) and then go back with the knock-down knife and smooth it out. Otherwise you'll have "semi popcorn" ceilings again.

Let it dry completely, then paint!! We used Kilz Ceiling Paint. It's a little to shiny for our taste, but its a good primer/paint in one and we can always go back and paint again. 

Overall, it took about a week (N's spring break) but the look is worth it! It's so much cleaner and less smelly! 

Finished product:

Once we rolled up all the plastic (seriously, that's worth the $5 a roll), We put all the lights back up, brought the furniture in, and went back to normal! 

Up next - fixing the walls and paint! 

Totals: 

Time - 1 week

Cost - around $200  (including the hopper, a gallon of drywall mud, knock down knife, blue painters tape, and rolls of plastic) 

**Considering we priced out having one spot painted and repaired a few years ago and it was $900 (for a 4x6' space), we think $200 is pretty good for half the house!