Do It Yourself Tip on Taking the "Popcorn" Off An Acoustical Ceiling

Terry and I are "do it yourselfers". We have remodeled and lived in a couple of houses. This October we have been in this house 17 years. All the while we have lived here we have been in one project or another. Our house was built in the 1920s so there has been plenty to do.

When the boys were little we built a tree-less tree house and built fence around a big garden area. We planted many trees. The boys helped me plant our orchard. (If we counted on those trees to provide sustenance for us we would be out of luck. I have harvested less than a bushel of fruit from them in all these years. smile)

We spent one summer vacation painting the 32 windows...ugh. Thank the Lord that we had new vinyl ones put in last year. (The bottom story of the house) We have done a lot of work outside and painted inside and are in the process of redoing the hardwood floors. (almost ready for the staining step...Maybe it will be done in 10 days.)

When we began the process of working on the floors I had Terry take a flat hoe and knock off the acoustic balls off the ceiling in the living room. At some point in the past...probably 30 years ago someone had painstakingly sprayed the ceilings in the house to modernize them. Terry and I even did it to one of our other houses. It looks great for quite some time, but after 30 years...the dirt just won't vacuum off anymore.

We scraped the ceilings of our kitchen and dining room in years previous, but I thought that maybe there was a better way to do it than to scrape it "dry". On the home improvement shows they usually show people spraying the ceiling with water and using a putty knife. The way we did it in the past left a nice texture behind. Using water in the way suggested on TV causes it to scrape off to a smooth finish. If that is the look you want then that is the way to do it. It takes a lot more time because you have to climb a ladder and use a putty knife and get the ceiling pretty wet.

I took the spray bottle and sprayed...I thought evenly, and Terry stood on the floor with the flat hoe and scraped. Where it was wetter it went smooth otherwise it left texture. It made sort of a pattern of texture and smooth, so it looks somewhat intentional. Yesterday I scraped the ceiling of the hallway...dry... I was much more satisfied with the look. In the dining room and kitchen we painted over the "left over" texture. The paint soaked in pretty much and flattened the texture even more, but it looks very nice. I have heard of diy people scraping the ceiling smooth and then applying texture. To me that seems like a redundant step when a dry scraping will leave a nice look. Try it. You will be able to see what you are left with for texture. If you don't like the look, then spray it down and scrape it clean.

I am looking forward to the finished product. Two walls will be medium chocolate brown with the other two a couple of shades down the color chip...a tan. I am doing the ceiling in a cream and using a overhead projector to project an over sized vine pattern on the tan wall which I will paint in the cream color. On the ceiling around the ceiling fan I am planning to project and paint a vine in the tan color...mmmm hopefully all will turn out well. I will post pictures so you can judge for yourself.