Popcorn ceilings--ugh!

[minkydog]

We have a house built in the 70s which has those horrible popcorn ceilings through out. I hate them, hate them, HATE them.It's going to be a mess and a pain to get the popcorn off. But I'm willing to do it. My question has to do with the living room.

The living room is long about 22' x14'. The floor is medium-stain hardwood(think pecan) and there are beams on the ceiling. at the far end is a beautiful flagstone fireplace which extends all the way to the ceiling.the hearth runs the width of the room, about 14'. It's a warm room, casual and family-oriented,but the vaulted popcorn ceiling looks awful.

I have seen a couple of times on HGTV where they put up painted board ceilings in similar houses, with the boards running the length of the room and the beams painted darker. Usually the ceilings are painted the same color as the room. Has anyone ever seen this done? Any idea what it would cost? I think I'd rather have painted boards than scrape all the popcorn off this huge ceiling.

 

[diznygirl]

Sometimes there is asbestos in the popcorn - you have to have it tested. And then it becomes a real pain to get rid of it!

We were given the idea to dry wall over it. The painted board ceiling idea sounds great. Have you tried searching HGTV.com?

 

[LisaNJ25]

I have no decorating advice.. my dinning room is panel walls and popcorn ceiling. I have to vacuum the ceiling

 

[minkydog]

Sometimes there is asbestos in the popcorn - you have to have it tested. And then it becomes a real pain to get rid of it!

We were given the idea to dry wall over it. The painted board ceiling idea sounds great. Have you tried searching HGTV.com?

Ack! I never thought of asbestos! Thanks for that tip. I'll definitely get that looked at before we move it. (Geez, I hope we don't end up having to put up new ceilings throughout the house )

 

[minkydog]

I have no decorating advice.. my dinning room is panel walls and popcorn ceiling. I have to vacuum the ceiling

You have my sympathy

 

[doxdogy]

Our house was built in 1978 and we have popcorn ceiling too. I loathe and despise them. I have researched on removing it and it is to labor intensive, plus the risk of asbestos. Listed below are two links, one for hgtv and one for Armstrong ceilings. They are suspended ceilings.

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/remodeling/article/0,1797,HGTV_3659_1382249,00.html

http://www.armstrong.com/resclgam/na/ceilings/en/us/

 

[MyManGoofy!]

I have popcorn ceilings and I HATE HATE HATE them! I had no idea that getting rid of them would be so involved.

What was the idea/purpose to them in the first place?

 

[Laura]

What was the idea/purpose to them in the first place?

It's easier to do than a nice, smooth ceiling.

 

[Sinderelli]

I have popcorn ceilings and I HATE HATE HATE them! I had no idea that getting rid of them would be so involved.

What was the idea/purpose to them in the first place?

They were used to hide imperfections in the finishing. It takes a good finisher to smooth out the drywall without seeing lumps/lines.

DH is a contractor, and he is putting thin sheetrock (not sure of the size) over the ceilings in our house, rather than scraping and removing the popcorn.

 

[MyManGoofy!]

I think I would rather have the less than smooth finish and imperfections instead of globs of guck all over the ceiling!

 

[hiwaygal]

I feel your pain!!!

Ours are newer so I know there's no asbestos. We found this stuff in a spray bottle that removes the junk pretty easily, but it is messy!! And you have to be careful of overspray on your walls.

We are going to put up the Armstong panels eventually too. I have one structural "beam" and a soffit over the fireplace that I'm going to cover in a laminate that is stained and poly-ed to match the other wood in the room. So I think your idea sounds good!

 

[GeorgeG]

In 2005 when we bought our new house here, The Villages was still using popcorn ceilings. We didn't think too much about it then, but we do not like them now. They have since stopped using that in the past year or so.

I want to scrape them all down, but I'm told it's too much work. I might try a closet or something small just to see. I'm told places loke Home Depot have tools just for removing the popcorn with less mess. Most of our friends and neighbors have decided to just live with them.

 

[cheeringmom]

We removed the popcorn in our great room, kitchen, dining room and bathrooms. It was the messiest job we have ever done but have not regretted it. We put spanish lace up on the ceiling and we get more compliments on the ceiling than on our new wood floors. We didn't wet them, just scraped them amost completely off. We had a contractor come in and "knock down" the ceiling. It looks great. We also paid someone to paint them since we have a huge wooden beam in our great room and the ceilings
are cathedral. Too high for me to get up on a ladder and paint! The bedrooms still have the popcorn./ Wish I had the energy to do those too. We painted them ourselves and that was a mess b/c a lot of the popcorn came off in the process. Then we had to spray popcorn on it to cover the mistakes. What a nightmare. But it is worth it. There is a TON of dust to worry about. So clean out your rooms and your elctrical equipment before you start scraping. We didn't use the scrapers from Home depot. We just used a huge flat scraper and that worked just fine. Our house is about 20 yrs old so we didn't worry about asbestos.

 

[Nancy]

In 2005 when we bought our new house here, The Villages was still using popcorn ceilings. We didn't think too much about it then, but we do not like them now. They have since stopped using that in the past year or so.

I want to scrape them all down, but I'm told it's too much work. I might try a closet or something small just to see. I'm told places loke Home Depot have tools just for removing the popcorn with less mess. Most of our friends and neighbors have decided to just live with them.

That's exactly what I am now doing. I didn't mind them when I moved in but after 23 years I have had enough. Really tough to kill a spider on them let me tell you! I was just looking at ours this week and thinking they need to be done or removed so we can just paint like most folks do, but the cost for either option for a living room, dining room, family room and upstairs hallway is just a bit steep. So, we'll just live with what we have. I think ours were done because it's an old house and the ceilings are really wavy. The 3 bedrooms have the ceiling tiles in them and so does the upstairs bathroom. Luckily the kitchen has a good old plain ceiling because popcorn in there would have been

 

[Becky2005]

What was the idea/purpose to them in the first place?

Or you have a dad like mine that does things himself and decided "I think that's a neat look". My dad did that to their bathroom for no reason at all except he thought it was neat looking. One just never knows what we are going to find in their house at times. It was the mid-late 90's when he did that.

I hadn't ever seen a ceiling done like that until my dad did it.

 

[golfgal]

We have popcorn ceilings too. I don't like them but I am not willing to scrape them either. We have painted them a color and that disguises them somewhat. The ceilings are about 2 shades lighter then the wall color in pretty much every room in our house. It does help if you want to go that route.

 

[pirateofthecarolinas]

I have seen a couple of times on HGTV where they put up painted board ceilings in similar houses, with the boards running the length of the room and the beams painted darker. Usually the ceilings are painted the same color as the room. Has anyone ever seen this done? Any idea what it would cost? I think I'd rather have painted boards than scrape all the popcorn off this huge ceiling.

What you have seen is called bead board. I have seen a sunroom done with this. It was whitewashed and looked stunning. I don't know how much it would cost.

LisaNJ25, I had your same problem in our 1968 home. I primed the panelling, put up a chair rail, put up textured wallpaper on the bottom of the chair railing, and painted both the top and bottom the same color. It turned out great.

Lori