Goodbye Popcorn!

Remember these lovely popcorn ceilings? :

Let's just say they were not my favorite part about the house, and removing them was near the top of my wish list. After a lot of online research we decided this was way too big of a project to tackle on our own. Turns out it is NOT a fun job and it is really hard to do right. And since pretty much the entire house is popcorn aside from the two bathrooms and the closets, we knew this wasn't a DIY opportunity. It is also a very messy job, so we knew we needed to do it very first, before any other projects started. (Turns out the rates are also reduced if the house has no furniture in it and if the walls will be painted after smoothing-- score!) So with the help of "Drywall Steve", as he calls himself, we now have beautiful, smooth ceilings!! 

When he came to check out the house and give us a quote, we found out that not only were the ceilings popcorn textured, but they had also been painted at some point over the years meaning they are pretty much impossible to scrape off at that point. This meant that rather than simply scraping the ceilings back to their pre-textured state, he would have to spread a coat of drywall material (a "skim-coat") on top of the texture to bring the entire thing to a smooth finish. 

Here are a few pictures during the process:

First coat is on.. getting smoother! 

Steve would also make repairs in the ceilings and walls as he came across imperfections, nail holes, cracks, etc and brought all walls and ceilings to a smooth, ready-to-paint finish. 

And here are the final results, pre-painting:

And the painted finish:

(You can see we were also in the middle of testing sample after sample for paint colors)

My very handy project team painting the ceilings!

So there you have it! Steve was great to work with and the finished product was exactly what I was hoping for! The painted popcorn almost doubled the cost of this project from what we were expecting (a fabulous way to begin this home renovation), but I think that this may end up being the best investment we make in the house. It's hard to appreciate from the pictures, but the entire house looks drastically updated from just this one project. So, if you are thinking about smoothing your ceilings.. do it! You won't regret it.