Cost to Remove Popcorn Ceiling??

Well the time has come and my lovely wife is hell bent on getting the popcorn ceilings removed. I would rather pocket the cash, but that aint gonna happen.

Has anyone had this done recently? Would like to have an undertanding of how much this is going to hurt the wallet.

Also, ano reccomendations on labor in the Frisco area would be appreciated.

https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/walls-a...ASAAEgL8xPD_BwE

Pretty close to what I paid. Living Room and Dining Room so far. Living Room had wood work that had to be worked around so it was bit more expensive. Few more rooms to go.

Curious about this also. Has anyone ever done it themselves?

you can do it yourself with a helper.

one of ya on the scraper and the other spraying water from a bottle, damp not wet.

cover floor with good plastic since you will be walking on it and stuff is gonna fall on it, heavy visqueen is recommended.

get a 12" sheetrock knife

and a 3 or 4" for corners and tight spaces.


a 2 gal hand sprayer (like you use for bug spray) works good to wet it, try not to get the sheetrock too wet.

most all rental yards have stilts too, just be sure you can walk on them before goin nuts.

After you scrape the popcorn, do you have to texture the ceiling or can you just paint?

You have to re-texture it. Otherwise it'll look like crap. The scrapping process doesn't leave a pretty finish by any means. And this is the messiest project you'll ever have done. I highly recommend doing it at the same time your replacing the flooring.

I had great results re-texturing lightly just using a high-quality 1/2" nap roller and slightly thinned down joint compound.
I initially used an 'oval texture brush' after rolling the compound on (slap method), but ultimately chose the more-subdued texture made with just the roller alone!

However, the highest recommendation I can make is to use the GLIDDEN 'PINK TO WHITE' CEILING PAINT ;
don't cheap-out and use just any flat-white; the final finish of the Glidden is just amazing! (very soft seamless look).

Removal (of the popcorn) depends on if it has ever been painted, and with what; mine came off very easily with just water sprayer & 10 min wait.
Very messy tho. Used both a popcorn-scraper - http://www.homedepot.com/p/Homax-Ceiling...ceiling+scraper
AND just a 12" drywall scraper with a sodacase-cardboard-flat to catch the 'droppings' (he latter was much faster).
The scraper was indispensable, tho, on the 16' ceilings section (along with a 12' aluminum telescoping handle)!

You really do have to get every bit of the 'powdery' popcorn crap off or the joint compound won't want to adhere to the drywall, making texturing difficult.
I DID find that PRIMERING with plain original KILZ (OIL based only) prior to re-texturing made things go much smoother (it penetrates any remaining powdery stuff and eliminates any adhesion issues). It HAS to be the oil-based; the latex kiltz won't penetrate & bond like the oil stuff does.

Was told to tape the putty knife/scraper to the hose of a shop vac and it will keep things a lot cleaner, but haven't done it.

My brother scraped/retextured/and painted his himself... granted its a small home, but he is no carpenter and it looks really good.

this is the right way to do it.

the kilz oil based is probably the most important part.

if you do that use a large dustpan under the scraper and tape the hose to pick up where the handle attaches. I used a large aluminum from lowes last time. fastest is just put plastic on floor and roll it up when done.
have some of the hospital shoe covers too, that stuff gets bad messy.

Be careful if your home is a little older as the popcorn ceiling is notorious for having asbestos.

Was just thinking this!

as long as it stays moist the asbestos is not a problem, the dust is where you get in trouble.

Built in 1998 so asbestos shouldn't be an issue. The more i read up on this the more i'm looking to hire someone. It's not so much the scraping and painting, but texuturing the ceiling is what's getting me.

texture is pretty easy if you are not too picky about the style.

box of sheetrock joint compound, a texture roller/handle and a couple of 5 gal buckets (one half full of water)

fill the empty bucket about half full of mud, add water till it is a really thick soupy consistency, you want it to be workable but not runny at all.

roll it on, it will take a few trial and error attempts but is not all that hard, worst part is the mess it will make.

plastic, plastic, plastic then a little more plastic.



if you want orange peel you need to hire it out, roll texture can be knocked down with the 12" knife with very light pressure (again trial and error) to take off the peaks. I actually like the look when done this way.

Texture is the easy part, i am finishing up my living room, it's 20x25, scraped the texture off ceiling and walls. Skimmed everything with mud, it took 4 skim coats but it's almost a lvl 5 finish(smooth enough for wallpaper) I'll be ready for texture tomorrow. I've been working on this since 2 weeks after Harvey. Its not easy working all day and doing sheetrock at night but i couldn't afford to hire someone to do it.

Note; I'm going with a splatter texture on the walls and a splatter drag on the ceiling, very easy to apply,

I did my garage ceiling, and that was enough for me. Lol. Paid someone to do the entire house. Small home, 1600 sq ft. Paid $3k. And that was my cheapest quote. That was for a scraping, not full removal. Basically knocks down the popcorn look and leaves a textured look. Then we repainted all of the walls we had the ceiling painted as well. Looks 100x better. Really updated this little house.

I did my whole house when we updated it. We basically gutted the entire house. I used a garden hoe for the large areas and a 4" drywall mud trowel to do the edges and corners. Was quick and easy. Used a 6" round/flat brush to texture with drywall mud then prime and paint.

I paid $4600 this time last year to have a 1600SF house done. Had the popcorn removed, whole house re painted, and ceiling re textured. That was for everything.

FYI, turn your AC off. I wound up having to get my AC coil cleaned because the dust was getting thru the filters that were replaced daily.

We had a popcorn ceiling at our lake house.That's the first thing everybody noticed...I'm going who the hell walks around looking up at the ceiling.....LOL

I did it myself. Put plastic sheeting on the furniture and got a 6" wide scraper and went to town. Comes off very easy. Then used a shop vac and sucked it all up. Then got the ceiling done like the wife wanted. Really not that big a deal.

There is a DIY video on YouTube that shows a way to connect the shop vac to your scraper and save a tone of work.

https://www.amazon.com/WEN-6369-Variable...+sander+drywall

Check em out on Youtube

This guys rig is the ticket...

just did our master bathroom, 15 x 15

1. Cover floor with plastic
2. Use spray bottle to wet ceiling, wait 5-10 minutes to soften plaster. Work in a 4x4 square.
3. Use 6" scraper with box to catch material.
4. Dump box in trash can.
5. Repeat.
6. Wipe walls to prevent plaster from drying on walls (if not painting).

Took my wife and I approx. 45 minutes, saved $600.

Now you can take that $600 and have a nice weekend away with your wife somewhere nice.....

If his ceiling isn’t wet, that stuff is coming off WAY too easy.

Paint applied before 1978 may contain lead as an additive. When this disturbed paint gets into the air, it can get inside and lead to serious health problems. So, it is worth to get rid of the popcorn ceiling https://vanceiling.com/services/popcorn-celing-removal/ to prevent poisoning. As with asbestos, cheap lead paint testing kits allow you to take samples yourself, scraping flakes and ground them to a fine powder.