Cleaning "popcorn" ceilings...

[Taylors6]

I'm not sure if thats even the right thing to call them- the sprayed up bumpy ceilings?!? We have them in the kitchen and they are dusty....but when I tried to wipe over them the parts fall off!

HELP!?!?

 

[barbeml]

I use the vac extension for the dust bunnies, but it is basically hopeless. We are gradually removing all of our popcorn...living room, dining room and master bedroom down, kitchen & two bedrooms to go.

There is a special place in hell for the inventor of that stuff.

 

[ncmickeyluvr]

I don't know what the "proper" way is..I'd be curious to see what anyone else posts..but I've been know to vacuum mine with the vacuum hose. Works pretty well at getting dust.

 

[eeyorethegreat]

We have this stuff all through our house and I have to say I can't imagine what the people were thinking when they put that stuff up there! I'm not sure how to get them real clean other than repainting but I would vote short of that the vacuum...

 

[Juliegirl1]

And from the research I've done it's a PITA to remove. They suggest getting an expert to remove it because of asbestos and toxicity problems. I have it all over my house and cannot stand it. I would love to paint my ceilings but have no idea how to do it with this stuff. Every single time I go up in my attic a little more of that crap falls all over my house and I have to clean it up.

 

[Jsme]

If your ceiling is stained you can have it painted.

 

[mombare]

And from the research I've done it's a PITA to remove. They suggest getting an expert to remove it because of asbestos and toxicity problems. I have it all over my house and cannot stand it. I would love to paint my ceilings but have no idea how to do it with this stuff. Every single time I go up in my attic a little more of that crap falls all over my house and I have to clean it up.

This is very true, and while I am not an expert in asbestos (we simply have it on our radiator pipes in the basement), some popcorn ceilings can contain asbestos if made before a certain timeframe. I would just do a little research. Encapsulating (sealing with paint) was an option for dealing with it, which would also make it nice and shiny white (or whatever color you choose). You can chat with the paint store about paint - get some recommendations.

 

[dahrjo]

We have a few rooms that came with popcorn ceilings, too!
It falls all over when the kids play in their rooms. All on the beds, and it is difficult to clean up. I would love to remove it, but that would be a huge mess. Is there a way to remove it? I don't think I could paint over it, it would be moving around.

 

[ashrae9216]

I have this mess in my bathroom. I have to sweep after anyone takes a shower because it falls all over the place. I HATE it. My husband took a paint scraper to it and had to stop because it was making such a mess. We will eventually take everything out of the bathroom (its a huge bathroom) and do it.. But I am dreading it.. Its in every room in my house, but the bathrooms are the worst.

 

[barbeml]

Removing is time-consuming but not really difficult. Wear a mask. Use a spray bottle to dampen an area then a wide scraper (like a big putty knife) to scrape it off. We HAD to remove the downstairs stuff due to water damage, and DH did it himself. The repair and "mudding" required a professional (we have a contractor friend). We did it as part of a total remodeling job and it looks gorgeous.

The upstairs bedroom ceiling just required a couple of coats of good ceiling paint once the corn was gone and it looks wonderful.

 

[simonsmom]

I hate ours too. I use a broom to "sweep" the dust off. We were thinking of just covering some of our ceilings with the new tin ceiling tiles.

 

[candielips]

My DH is a drywall taper/finisher so removing ours has been much easier thanks to him.
He takes a paint roller, gets it real wet & rolls the water on the ceiling. Let it soak a few mins & then proceed to scrape off with a taper knife. He uses a 10", but it doesn't matter. Now that's the part everyone can do. He then does a skim coat of plaster/mud over the entire ceiling. He tried just doing it over the joints in one room & you could totally see the different areas on the ceiling in the light. Once the skim coat dries, give it a light sand & prime & paint.

The reason they put this stuff up is because it is cheaper. When my DH does a house w/ smooth ceilings (no texture) he is paid more, doesn't have to do as much work, and it doesn't use as much material. When it is textured he only has to put the tapes on & give it one coat of mud/plaster but if it was smooth it needs 2 coats & it also needs to be final sanded.

Wait until my DH hears that I was talking about his work on the DIS board. Maybe then he won't nag me so much about spending too much time on here.

 

[mirandag819]

They actually make a device designed to remove this stuff. I removed it from DDs playroom ceiling last year so that I could paint circus tent stripes on the ceiling. I bought the scraper thing at Lowes in the paint department. It hooked to a broom poll and had clips to hold a bag to help collect the "popcorn" as you scrapped it off.

 

[barbeml]

They actually make a device designed to remove this stuff. I removed it from DDs playroom ceiling last year so that I could paint circus tent stripes on the ceiling. I bought the scraper thing at Lowes in the paint department. It hooked to a broom poll and had clips to hold a bag to help collect the "popcorn" as you scrapped it off.

We got one of those too. DH pitched it in the trash after about 5 minutes. He found it to be more trouble than it was worth.

I must say, it took me longer to shop vac the corn off the floor than it took him to scrape if off the ceiling.

 

[Taylors6]

How embarrassing.... I have to admit that I WANTED this stuff 8 years ago when we re did the whole kitchen!! What was I thinking!

I am my own worst enemy!

After all the trouble to get it done (they had to take it off and start again once!) DH would kill me if I say I want it down!

I guess if I clean it enough maybe it will come down on its own!

 

[mirandag819]

We got one of those too. DH pitched it in the trash after about 5 minutes. He found it to be more trouble than it was worth.

I must say, it took me longer to shop vac the corn off the floor than it took him to scrape if off the ceiling.

Really? It worked great for me! I was done with a fairly large bedroom in about 30 minutes, and the garbage bag I attached collected most of the stuff. Of coarse I already had plastic down so I could paint it next, so all the extra just got rolled up in it.

 

[pixiewings71]

We had our ceilings redone before we moved into our home. One quick note, you can paint over the popcorn texture but if/when you do it makes it really hard when you try to scrape it later. It took our guy about 30 minutes to scrape every room in our house, except the master bedroom. That's where they had painted over the popcorn. It took him hours to clean that one.

 

[wdwmom0f3]

We have it too. I have thought about having it removed several times and it has just come up again. I know that we could get it down, but getting something else up would be a different story. It's in every room in the house.

 

[barbeml]

Really? It worked great for me! I was done with a fairly large bedroom in about 30 minutes, and the garbage bag I attached collected most of the stuff. Of coarse I already had plastic down so I could paint it next, so all the extra just got rolled up in it.

It was awkward and it scraped off more than we wanted (damaged the ceiling under the popcorn). Glad it worked well for you!