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My house was built in 1919 and has popcorn ceiling in most of the first floor. I am prepared to scrape the ceilings myself but I am nervous about what I will find underneath. I know popcorn ceilings were generally used to hide imperfections. Is it possible that I would require extensive drywall repair after removing the popcorn?
I know it is impossible to tell until I start, but was hoping to see what some others have gone through. As I don't have the budget at the moment to hire a drywall contractor.
I've watched many videos but I haven't seen much about the repairs required after removal.
My house was built in 1919 and has popcorn ceiling in most of the first floor. I am prepared to scrape the ceilings myself but I am nervous about what I will find underneath. I know popcorn ceilings were generally used to hide imperfections. Is it possible that I would require extensive drywall repair after removing the popcorn?
I know it is impossible to tell until I start, but was hoping to see what some others have gone through. As I don't have the budget at the moment to hire a drywall contractor.
I've watched many videos but I haven't seen much about the repairs required after removal.
Thanks!
I have removed this spray on stuff before without any issues. It was not fun but simple, all you need is a spray bottle, a hand scrapper and some patience. Just had some spackling to do afterwards where the tape was exposed and then painted the area and it looked fine.
My house was built in 1919 and has popcorn ceiling in most of the first floor.
I am prepared to scrape the ceilings myself but I am nervous about what I will find underneath.
You should be. A whole lot of stuff can come up in the course of 100 years.
Quote:
I know popcorn ceilings were generally used to hide imperfections. Is it possible that I would require extensive drywall repair after removing the popcorn?
It's LIKELY. Imperfections is about the nicest way of saying it.
It's also likely that you'll be better off to plant to remove whatever is underneath
at the outset right on down past the original 1919 plaster & lath to the framing.
This reality is why they put up the popcorn.
Are you sure that what's under there is drywall? And if so, do you know what's under the drywall?
Of course, you know that popcorn ceilings are not a 1919 thing, more a 1979 thing.
What I don't like about them is that dust makes a big black mark next to the HVAC outlets if those are in the ceilings.
I have read that the solution to scraping off the big chunks is to get them wet. Someone mentioned a spray bottle; maybe you could start with a sponge on a stick and go round for a day or two keeping the whole ceiling damp?
I would say, get the big chunks off, but don't try to scrape it right down to flat unless you're prepared to float the whole damn ceiling to fill in the inevitable scrape marks, plus the underlying surface may be pretty cruddy, out of flat, etc., which would be one reason they sprayed that stuff up there in the first place. Like the fad a few years ago for removing paint from painted furniture. Yes, in many cases fine old finishes were revealed. But most of the time that old antique painted furniture was painted from the get-go, because it was made from ugly mixed woods that would never look good if you used a clear finish. Same thing may be the case with your ceiling.
It's not unreasonable to hypothesize that someone drywalled the ceiling something in the 60s through 80s, found that it was essentially impossible to make it look good using a plain flat finish (unevenness, etc.) and sprayed the popcorn to hide all that. You may end up having to rip it all off and re-do it to make it look good. Just be aware of this.
There might not be plaster and lath under there. Many houses where I grew up were built (this was a bit later, in the 30s) with tongue and groove 1 x 6s on the wall, covered with wallpaper. The ceilings, too. It's also possible that someone has ripped all the plaster and lath off and drywalled over the studs. Or, someone just put drywall over the plaster (but that doesn't tell you anything about what condition the plaster was in when they did it, and of course now it would have hundreds of drywall nail holes...) Or they just sprayed popcorn right on top of old cracked uneven plaster.
Why, there are a myriad of possibilities and I would suggest you figure out exactly what you've got before assuming the best thing to do is to take off the popcorn and go with a flat ceiling. And!!!! don't assume every room is the same, if we're talking about multiple rooms. In my 1939 house, some rooms have drywall over douglas fir 1 x 6s, while other walls are drywall over studs.
With all that, I might opt to get one of those rollers with the really deep nap and just paint whatcha got till you have both time and money to deal with whatever mystery you may find underneath.
Drywall was introduced in 1916, so you "could" have drywall or lath and plaster....or you could have both drywall and plaster...the most likely scenario. Early drywall looks quite different than what we have available today, what I've dealt with was 2'x4', covered with brown kraft paper with rounded edges, and was covered over with a layer of plaster. So, what kind of surface you will find under the popcorn could depend on the quality of the plaster job.
One issue to keep in mind...the videos I've seen show popcorn being easily scraped off after first wetting the surface with water via a pump sprayer.....which probably works fine...if the surface has not been painted. I would imagine the degree of difficulty increases greatly with a painted surface.
A couple thoughts come to mind based on personal experiences (current house is a 1930-built, prior was a 70's starter w/ popcorn). You original ceilings were, almost with 100% certainty, plaster. While drywall/gypsum was around (1916 according to the internet), it didn't gain popularity until the post-war housing boom. Plaster has a unique failing where the 'keys' (portion of plaster that's forced through the lath, and holds everything in place) break and the surface comes loose. Ceilings are especially bad if the space above has seen use (attic for storage is the worst, ceiling joists aren't designed for walking on and flex ~ again I'm speaking from direct, and very personal, experience).
Anyway, the original ceiling was probably having some issues and owners hired in the cheap fix, slap up drywall and cover the sloppy install with popcorn. For whatever it's worth, there are solutions to properly fix plaster with broken keys, and it's not difficult to patch though skill is required to match textures.
As for removing the stuff (popcorn), it's simple enough. I used a garden sprayer to damp the popcorn, gave it a few minutes to soak (usually the time to spray a room was enough), and then scraped it off. It comes off easily, though makes a HUGE mess... for which there are a dozen different products that claim to help if you're so inclined to spend your money (might be more like wasting money).
Now comes the fun part. The remaining drywall Will be imperfectly finished. If you go back over with a different cover coat like stippling, you should be good to go. If you want perfectly smooth ceilings though, there is undoubtedly a LOT of mud and sanding that will need to take place. Having been down the road to smooth ceilings, it is Massively labor intensive, which translates to very expensive if you hire it out. It's also much messier than removing the popcorn in the first place (fine dust vs big chunks ~ I'll take the big chunks anytime). IMHO, the best/fastest/cheapest is doing a stipple coat, which is simply a loose mix of drywall mud (spackle, whatever you like to call it) that's then rolled onto the ceiling with a long-nap paint roller. This will leave ridges and protrusions, a texture. You can further modify this by using a stiple brush/mop, which is then "stomped" against the wet surface to give more of a rounded pattern (or whatever shape the brush), or doing a "knock-down" after rolling. Heck, you can make swoopy designs, I have a sun in my dining room with the light fixture at the middle.
You just have to decide on your level of involvement. The more labor, the more cost. It's either money spent to someone else, or free time spent doing the work. I think I had about 60 hours into doing roughly 1200sq/ft with my 70's home. I probably have 300 hours into repairing the plaster in my current home (2000sq/ft).
The only thing I could add is that you should be aware that popcorn ceiling COULD have asbestos in it. And if it does, it's the nasty friable type of asbestos that does get airborne when removing.
I understand opinions on asbestos exposure vary widely, so just wanted to put this out there as an FYI in case you weren't aware.
Yeah, that popcorn stuff! Ugly and holds so much dust!
I scraped it off and am so happy...no damage up there...a couple hours of effort taking things out of the room and covering things was SO worth it!
Put some good music on!
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