Remodeling Project #1 - Removing Popcorn Ceilings

Between the groans of my husband climbing up and down a ladder, the hissing of the garden sprayer soaking every surface in the house, and the scraping of the trowel on the ceilings, I thought I was listening to an urban construction soundtrack of some sort... But the rhythmic sounds were not so soothing... This weekend my husband and I tackled the first of many projects to come in our two-month remodeling project - removing popcorn ceilings. It really wasn't that bad. We were lucky, though, because the ceilings had never been painted which made our jobs about 1000 times easier from what I've heard.

I'm going to share a little insight on the things I learned while removing popcorn ceilings:

1. Prep work - After the popcorn came down, we knew we were going to have the ceilings textured. So we had our contractor come and put up all the plastic and dropcloth before we got started. He would be doing it anyway before texturing, so it saved us quite a bit of time to have them do the prep work for us and it didn't cost anything extra. The only downside was that they used painters tape to tape plastic to the walls, but the top six inches of wall were protected by a brown paper and masking tape. The water we sprayed on the ceiling to saturate the popcorn mud unfortunately took a lot of the "stick" out of the masking tape so a lot of it fell down, creating more work for us the next day. I would recommend spraying very carefully around the edges of the ceiling to avoid getting water on the tape. It's worth a little bit of extra effort in the scraping to avoid the disappointment of walking into the house the following day to a heap of plastic you have to hang back up.
2. Technique - As I mentioned, our ceilings had never been painted so all we needed was warm water in a garden sprayer. (HOW TO TELL - if the glitter is still visible, they are unpainted OR if it feels chalky to the touch they are probably still unpainted). The first step is to take down all the light fixtures. Then apply warm water to the ceiling with a garden sprayer. I bought a 2 gallon sprayer and was glad I didn't opt for the five gallon as it would've been way too heavy to carry around when full of water. After trying several techniques, what seemed to work the best was to work from side to side, wetting 3 foot squares at a time. Slow spraying makes a bit of a mess, because the water can't soak in as fast as it's coming out of the nozzle. Instead, waving the wand quickly in short strokes that overlap each other allowed the water to soak in a little at a time while still ending up with a saturated ceiling. It worked well for my husband to scrape a few yards behind me. That way, the water had a chance to soak in and get the popcorn nice and soggy. The second step is obviously to scrape away the old popcorn mud. This is not difficult at all when the mud is wet enough. One article I read said to file down the corners of the trowel so you don't dig into the drywall underneath. I opted not to file down the trowel, and didn't have any problems at all. My husband chose to climb up and down a ladder and scrape the ceiling off in the same three foot squares I had wetted down. However, this required a lot of up and down movement and my husband's arm got tired pretty quickly. A way to get around this would be to put the trowel on the end of a long extension handle so you can stand on the ground. That would also help with the debris falling further away from your face. 
3. Clean up - The worst part about taking down popcorn ceilings is the clean up. If you don't plan to texture right away and don't need to save the plastic, you could roll the debris up in the dropcloth and throw it all away. If you plan to texture, it's best to save the plastic so you don't have to do the prep work twice. Before you can sweep up the debris, you have to let it dry for at least a few hours but preferably overnight. Just like all other forms of drywall dust, the stuff floats in the air for hours and it seems to coat everything. Even though we had plastic everywhere, there is still a layer of dust on all the walls and carpeting underneath.

What it Means to be a Do-it-Yourself-er

My husband and I are getting ready to begin a two-month long remodeling project on a home we just purchased as a fixer upper. The daunting task of a kitchen remodel would be scary enough, but no... there's more. We're gutting the main bathroom, retexturing all the ceilings, painting virtually every permanent surface in the house, and upgrading some of the fixtures. As a do-it-yourself-er, it can sometimes be hard to know what the best techniques are and where to get started. I do not consider myself to be an expert, but rather a seasoned "tryer." So over the next few months as we tear into the belly of our new house and discover what we should and shouldn't do, I plan to share my findings with the rest of the do-it-yourself world. If even one of my mistakes will help someone else save time or money, that is worth it to me. Tonight, we begin with removing popcorn ceilings. As they say, "let the games begin!"