Taking down a popcorn ceiling is one of the fastest ways to make a room look newer. It is also messy and has one step people skip: testing.
Test first if the house is older
Popcorn ceilings applied before the mid-1980s can contain asbestos. If your home is from that time, get a sample tested by a lab before anyone scrapes. If it comes back positive, it needs a licensed abatement company, not a drywall crew.
What the job looks like
- Protect the room. Floors and walls covered in plastic, vents and lights masked.
- Wet and scrape. The texture is misted with water and scraped off in sections.
- Repair and skim. Scraping always shows dents, tape lines and old patches. A skim coat over the whole ceiling makes it flat.
- Sand, prime and paint. Then the plastic comes down and the room is cleaned.
Smooth or a new texture?
A smooth ceiling looks the most modern but needs the most finishing, because every flaw shows. A light knockdown or orange peel hides small imperfections and costs less. If your walls are textured, a matching light texture on the ceiling usually looks right.
How long it takes
Many rooms are done in two to three days. Most of that is drying time between coats, not scraping.
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