Help with painting popcorn

Anything I should know about painting a popcorn ceiling? It's pretty crumbly, and I wondered if any of you had experience with the stuff. Thanks all.

Scraper. Respirator mask. Shop vac. Don't even try to paint crumbly popcorn. You'll go mental.

On 2004-04-06 13:48, martiki wrote:
Anything I should know about painting a popcorn ceiling?

Uh, spray paint?

My popcorn ceiling has asbestos in it; you may want to have yours tested before messing with it.

--cindy

Our condo had a popcorn ceiling-we had a leak and had to repair it.You can buy stuff that sprays more popcorn on,but watch out-it goes EVERYWHERE!!!!! Cover your stuff really well,or you'll have it all over-it's a real treat to clean up,let me tell you.

i hate popcorn ceilings. they look ugly, you cant paint them, and the "kernals" come off easly when i hit my head on the ceiling from bouncing on the bed.

The house I bought has trowed (sp) & acoustic tile ceilings. And any future house I buy. Personally I think popcorn ceilings are a fast cheap way to finish the job.

-one man aspiring to be everyone’s favorite unkle.
http://www.unklejohn.com

[ Edited by: Unkle John on 2004-04-06 21:45 ]

On 2004-04-06 14:02, purple jade wrote:
Scraper. Respirator mask. Shop vac. Don't even try to paint crumbly popcorn. You'll go mental.

---

Is that where you've been? :)

I was mental WAY before I encountered popcorn ceilings.

Is a popcorn ciling some kind of crazy american talk for stucco ceiling? Cause I have them in my condo. I assume it's to cover up any soddy workmanship, ahah!

I aint touchin the bitches. Leave em white.

On 2004-04-07 07:33, tikifish wrote:
Is a popcorn ciling some kind of crazy american talk for stucco ceiling? Cause I have them in my condo. I assume it's to cover up any soddy workmanship, ahah!

I aint touchin the bitches. Leave em white.

yo, us crazy americans! heh heh. stucco i think tends to be troweld on, imparting that 70's spanish/mexican look. the popcorn stuff was actually sprayed on , imparting a stippled, bumpy look.

mmm, whose got the butter?

OK! SO I have a popcorn ceiling. I've mistakenly been calling it stucco! Who's the fool now? ME!

I will never live down the shame!

When I bought my house, the living room ceiling was covered with three inches of sheetrock mud all swirled around like fluffy cake icing.

I hired my nieces & nephews to help me wet it down and scrape it off. It took 40 man hours to remove & clean up the muck.

A neighbor kid said he was there when the previous owner did the ceiling. I asked, "WHY did he do it?" He just shook his head and said, "NOBODY KNOWS".

it's the "ceiling as food" fetish perhaps.

good thing 'spam' ceilings never came into vogue.

Besides being incredibly difficult to paint, painting a popcorn ceiling makes it much, much, much harder to later remove. Removing an unpainted popcorn ceiling is actually pretty trivial -- tape your walls & floor up with plastic, wet the stuff down with a sprayer, scrape it off (this will actually take less time than taping off with plastic), take your messy plastic-water-and-popcorn bundle and toss it.

The wetting down is important for two reasons: it comes off more easily and cleanly if it's wet, and if it's wet you won't get airborne dust particles, which could be full of asbestos. If you're gonna be all legal-like, you need to have a small sample of the ceiling tested for asbestos (costs abour $50, look in the yellow pages), and if it comes back positive, you need to have it professionally removed and properly disposed of. This gets pretty pricey (and of course pricier if the ceiling has previously been painted, making it very difficult to wet for proper removal). If you're not gonna be all legal-like, you're actually pretty safe as long as you're not breathing the stuff. It's up to you whether you can sleep well at night knowing you've tossed asbestos into the normal garbage.

Popcorn was sometimes used to cover serious ceiling flaws, or instead of properly finishing a ceiling, so sometimes there's more work to be done besides re-painting what's underneath. Unless you're a homeowner, it's not worth doing anything at all. Don't touch the stuff.

Yeah, very good point about wetting it first because of asbestos. No one wants mesothelioma for Christmas.
Thing about painting it is, if it's already coming off, the paint will just add weight and pull it off in giant patches.

Oddly enough, Mdm Bong and I had someone come in and scrape off the accoustic ceiling crap in every room and hallway in our house and shoot on a 'knock-down' texture common in all the new houses.

I figure it's just a matter of time before retro-accoustic ceilings become all the rage again and we pay someone to put it back on!

(damn this chasing style habit!)

On 2004-04-07 12:31, Tiki_Bong wrote:
I figure it's just a matter of time before retro-accoustic ceilings become all the rage again and we pay someone to put it back on!

Have you been to downtown San Fran. in the last 5 years? In the 70's it was considered embarrassing to own a Victorian home, so they built around them with new (70's) modern designs. Now everyone is spending a fortune to strip away the old additions and restore them to their original Victorian era because it’s back in again.
Full Circle

Acoustic ceiling often have asbestos in them, older ones in particular. This is honest to god nasty stuff that WILL KILL YOU. It won’t kill you today but it will CUT YEARS OFF OF YOUR LIFE. You may want to consider having it encapsulated. Basically you have new sheetrock installed over,( well I guess under it if ya think about it) the cottage cheese junk. Asbestos is really only a danger if airborne, that is to say its fine until ya disturb it. When it is disturbed it WILL get in your lungs and shorten your lifespan. Please don’t just throw the stuff in the trash without knowing what it is, ( I know environmental boo hoo hooing) its just plain the wrong thing to do. If you feel like taking your chances and doing the water and wet vac thing, don’t ever use the vac again, as you can not get all the asbestos out of it and every time you turn it on it will spit invisible cancer all over the place. The reason they started using the stuff was to deaden sound, keep it from bouncing all around the room, thus the name “Acoustic Ceiling” its awful stuff and never lived up to its promise but it is a quick install, shot out of guns. Check the date on the stuff, if it was installed after the mid 70’s it MAY be fine, if it is from the 50’s it is death from above. Be careful this stuff is no joke, if you muck around with it it could contaminate your home for years to come, it tends to linger and has a knack for infecting children.

Good luck,

If you Really need to paint it use a deep nap roller and go over the ceiling one pass at a time. Do Not roll over what you have already painted because it WILL Come Off. After it dries you can go over it again in the Same manner..Never roll over already wet popCorn.If you are careful, this Will work. Been there, Done that and bought the T-Shirt and spilled paint on it.

Popcorn ceilings are like huge sponges that suck up all your paint. So make sure you buy lots and lots of paint. Why does everyone want to get rid of the popcorn ceiling? In the right house, nothing's cooler than a popcorn ceiling with gold flecks....

You need really small brushes to start with. Then I recommend you string each individual kernel on a string-it helps a lot.

POPCORN Ceilings are THE BEST - Don't you Dis 'em...

i had the ceiling in vegas professionally painted and re-glittered!

unless you are handy with a paint spray gun - it's just easier to hire a professional. I called a bunch of people in the phone book under acoustical ceilings until i got a referral for someone who could do it. There is this little glitter throwing tool that only a few of these guys have - and you gotta have that to do the job right.

p.s.
I called Jib the painter "Jolly Jib!" He was very jovial from all the paint fumes... spray paint is the only truly easy way to go with these ceilings and unless you want to be permanently jolly too, hire a professional :)

p.p.s.
this is the second celing i've done like this and had no peeling or snowfall issues since...

FuturaGirl, my folks built a brand new house in 1970 and Mom vetoed the ceiling glitter because it was too tacky. Yeah, right. Too tacky for her OWL collection! I was devastated.

For camoflaging an isolated stain on a popcorn ceiling, this method worked for me after an unfortunate barbequed bean incident.

Take some white acrylic paint, the thick kind out of the tube. Mix in a little black or whatever color you need to make it match the ceiling color. Carefully dab the undiluted thick paint over the stain with your finger.

BEWARE:
This is what happens if you don't wear a respirator.
(but you end up with some killer lookin legs, though.)

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga on 2004-04-08 15:56 ]

HEY THAT LOOKS LIKE AN OUTHOUSE MOAN SHOW!

Have you been to downtown San Fran. in the last 5 years? In the 70's it was considered embarrassing to own a Victorian home, so they built around them with new (70's) modern designs. Now everyone is spending a fortune to strip away the old additions and restore them to their original Victorian era because it’s back in again.
Full Circle

Unfortunately, in Toronto we have the opposite problem - idiots are 'remodeling' the few 50's modern homes we have , by adding bay windows, faux stone facades, trim, siding, and shutters. It's heartbreaking!

When Toronto is 97 percent Victorian houses or 40's 2-story brick thingys, you'd think these idiots would just buy a Victorian house, instead of buying a cool 50's house and farking it up!