so i'm thinking about selling my condo and these are two obvious areas that i want to take care of before putting it on the market. 1. scraping the 1986-esque popcorn off the ceilings and paint them white. 1100 sq ft place, 2 story, 8 ft downstairs and 10 ft upstairs + stairwell. 2. carpet on stairs & upstairs - 2 bedrooms + closets, 1 hall, 1 stairwell. downstairs is all tile & teak wood. any idea on cost, time, or where to find a contractor? this is in the austin area, 78704 exactly.
You can scrape this yourself & end up with a tool for future uses @ obviously a lower amount than paying a pro... it's a long handled scraper with an attachment for a plastic bag (need dust masks & eye protection as well; it makes a nasty mess even with the bag). I'd suggest someone right there with you holding a shop vac... Do NOT paint flat without any texture. Your sound levels will be horrid due to a lack of absorbtion. Get a texture kit to go back up with Orange Peel @ a minimum or California Drag @ best. It's on a roller / handle kit like for painting, but the roller has the texture you're looking for. This is all available @ "Big Orange Box" or your retailer of choice, maybe even Pittsburgh Paints or Sherwin Williams. I have nothing on the carpet issue.
thanks for the response! how long do you estimate on a project like that? also, is any liquid involved in the removal? i don't want to mess up the wood floors.
Before you use the scraper described above (and, yes, that's the right tool--available at HD last time I noticed) you spray the popcorn with water to saturate and soften it up. Then it comes right off and there's no dust. However, it does make a mess, even though the bag catches 90% of the popcorn. You definitely need to protect your wood floors. I'd suggest a single piece of heavy plastic over the whole floor and then taped to the baseboards. Over that, put one of those cheap blue tarps to make it easy to pick up and remove the stray popcorn and water that will be dripping off the ceiling. It's a very messy job and you'll probably need to refloat some of the ceiling since that's why popcorn was used in the first place--to conceal a crappy float job and give remodelers something to do 20 years after the fact. In the carpeted areas you might consider removing the carpet, redoing the ceilings, then putting in the new carpet to make clean-up easier.
Regarding the ceilings. My dad just finished remodeling his entire house with new Orange peel ceilings. Looks great. Spray some water on the ceiling and get a scraper and there you go. Real quick to get it off. Messy but it won't harm your wood floors, atleast it didn't my dads.
Although not likely, you may want to check to make sure your popcorn ceiling does not contain asbestos. Asbestos is in a lot of popcorn ceilings installed before 1979.
if it indeed contains asbestos you have a couple options, basically 1) most expensive... have a licensed asbestos contractor remediate (this will include writing plans, ahving properly trained tecnicians conduct the prep. & removal, transportation and disposal fees, etc etc etc or 2) if it isn't already coated, then paint with a good latex paint and leave it alone. then, periodically check to make sure paint is in good condition Option 2 will help to keep the asbestos containing material from becoming friable and thus more easily airborne.
Ditto to the guy above who said scrape before changing carpet. The scraping makes a hell of a mess, and it gets in everything.
Couldn't you also screw 1/4" drywall to the entire ceiling, covering the popcorn? I would think that would provide a nicer surface to work with. Although I'm not sure what kind of effect the weight of the added sheetrock would have on your ceiling joists or trusses.
I need to get mine tested, my house was built in the early seventies and in my part of the country I'm sure they would have used asbestos based popcorn, I have a couple of areas that have peeled away and I've been wanting to scrape mine off too, I have to do something with these peelings, I'm glad this thread popped up cause I would have never guessed asbestos in the ceiling, only in paint.
