Monday, February 27, 2012

Kitchen Renovation: How to Remove A Popcorn Ceiling

Hello friends one weary blogger here to share how to remove a popcorn ceiling.  I just removed mine from the kitchen this weekend with my sweet daughters help.

First, you need to be sure that your popcorn ceiling has no asbestos in it and if it does I would turn this project over to the professionals.  Its just not worth the risk to do it yourself.

Supplies

water bottle
scraper
mask
goggles
lots of drop cloths
and if you really want to stay clean-- a space suit

Cover all furniture and cabinets with plastic drop cloths, sheets, or whatever you want to protect everything.  Also, if you are smarter than me you will move everything out and cover your floors also, and then your clean up will be much easier. Sigh.


If you are planning to just paint your ceiling I would not recommend using the water bottle because if you use to much or you scrape to hard you are going to damage your sheet rock and cause more work in the long run.





If you are going to cover your ceiling the first step is to spray your ceiling in one to two foot areas with plain water.  (I put water in an old Greased Lightening bottle).  This softens the popcorn material (what is that stuff anyway?), cuts back on the powder residue from spreading over your entire home, and makes it easier to remove.



After you let it set for awhile start scraping it off.  It comes off very easily.  Continue those two steps until you have removed all of the finish. By the way we removed all the vents and light fixtures after I took this picture. 



When you get through you will look like this:



Hah! If I had on a darker T-shirt you would really be able to see how dirty I was. lol

Now if you were my daughter you looked like this:






Look at her! The hair is still in place, she hardly had any powder in her hair, and her make-up was still on! And she did just as much as I did and in this picture was going back around and touching up a few spots. Thanks sweetie I love you.

By the way I recommend a scraper like I used it really worked a lot better than a plain one.  It is made by W.M. Zinsserman, Co. Inc. I don’t know where my husband picked it up at but there are probably other similar ones out there.




Here is what your floors will look like with about one and one-half inches of popcorn ceiling on them.




It took us about one hour to remove the popcorn from a 10’ by 26’ ceiling and another hour and one-half to clean up.

The best way to clean up if you don’t cover your floors is to sweep up the majority, then vacuum, and finally mop a couple of times.  If you mop before you vacuum you will be mopping forever.

Now I just decided today (please don’t tell my daughter) to use real tin ceiling tiles because I found a wonderful dealer online and realized I could afford them.  You see that’s what I wanted to begin with but I was going to put up the fake glue up kind and needed the ceiling removed.  Oh well sorry Misty. Embarrassed smile

Here’s a sneak peek.

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This is my pattern


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and this is the color “Bright White Satin”.  I ordered them from American Tin Ceilings click here to go to their website.

We’ll that’s it and it really wasn’t all that hard just tedious and messy.  Hope this helps you in a future project and be sure and come back to see what’s happening next in my kitchen.




14 comments:

Mari said...

Hi Peggy, woweeeeee what a big job you and your dear daughter have taken on, I can't help but laugh at your picture with all that dust on you.....I would have been sneezing up a storm....lol....
Looking forward to seeing your new kitchen, your ceiling is going to be just beautiful....

Smiles~
Mari

Gail @ http://biblelovenotes.com said...

Wow! This was quite an task, but it paid off. Great job and good tutorial. Gail

Mary Sullivan Frasier said...

Phew! Great job! It's nice to have grown daughters who are willing to help out though, isn't it? I love the tiles that you chose to replace the popcorn too.

We did a major reno a few years ago and knocked out the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Hubby wouldn't agree to keep the original tin ceilings (from 1869!) because we would have had to find a match for them to have continuity from one room to the other. I cried. A lot.

Stopping by from Thriving on Thursdays and newly following. (in multiple ways) Thanks for sharing your excellent "how to". I look forward to seeing the finished project!

At The Picket Fence said...

Wow! What a big job. I hate my textured ceilings. Their not popcorn but they are that pattern where the smoosh something up there and make a design. ugh. It seems like this is messy but not difficult, might have to tackle mine this summer. Thanks for sharing with us at Inspiration Friday.

Heather

Betsy @ Romance on a Dime said...

That is a big job! Seems like the clean up was more work than removing the popcorn ceiling. Unfortunately, our popocorn ceiling does have asbestos in it. We'll just have to live with it for now.

Thanks for linking up to the Take it on Tuesday blog hop!

foreverdecorating said...

It will be so wonderful and worth all the effort.

Audrey said...

Oh my Gosh, what a job. You will be happy that you cleaned it off. I sure would not have been able to do that. Love the tin tiles you will be using.
Blessings
Audrey Z. @ Timeless Treasures.

Sharon @ Elizabeth & Co. said...

Oh my gosh, I think you really do need a space suit for that project! Thanks for the tutorial!

Heaven's Walk said...

Holy moly - what a huge job! But your new ceiling is going to look soooo amazing, Peggy! Can hardly wait!

xoxo laurie

ReEducator said...

Peggy.....Please before you or anyone else does this have your ceilings tested many popcorn ceilings contain asbestos.

Peggy said...

Yes, ReEducator that is very important and I said that in my second paragraph so please everyone check your ceiling first . They sale the kits for checking for asbestos at most hardware stores.

Noe Velasco said...

Hi Peggy,

Very informative article. Do you allow guest posts on your blog? I'd love to post a follow up to this on the different reasons people choose to get rid of acoustic ceilings. On top of being ugly, did you know they actually make allergies worse for some people? Please email me: noevelasco07@gmail.com

PJH Designs said...

Hi Noe, no I would not be interested in a follow up article at this time. Thanks for stopping by.

Unknown said...

Thanks for posting this article. I can consider this as a splendid tutorial based on removal of popcorn ceiling. Enjoyed thoroughly going through it.

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