In my experience, they can get quite dirty if your vents aren’t cleaned often or if there’s any kind of soot (from a fireplace) or grease/smoke from cooking. And they’re basically impossible to clean.
But removing the popcorn is labor intensive and requires PPE, and probably leaves a ton of dust and debris everywhere. So if you don’t mind them, I’d leave them.
Post by doggielover on Feb 21, 2023 17:18:42 GMT -5
We have popcorn ceilings in the family room (basement level) and honestly in the beginning it bothered me but now I don't notice it. It's very hard to remove the popcorn ceilings and it's a ton of work. I wouldn't let it bother you though. We have only had our vents cleaned once in the 13 years we've bought our home and they don't get dirty nor do they look dirty.
We have popcorn ceilings and they bother me not at all. Every couple of months, I take my vacuum attachment and run it over the ceilings. Honestly, I prefer them over smooth but imperfect ceilings.
If you have to paint, hire someone to do that for you. They're also bad if you have a leak or some kind of repair because you can't match it. If you decide they don't work I would get someone else to remove it and not DIY.
We took ours down in our previous house because they had glitter (wtf) and looked awful since you could tell where someone had tried to touch up the ceiling with paint from previous water damage. Since the material was like dried spitballs, the paint didn't take very well. They were relatively easy to scrape off, and didn't make too much of a mess.
Post by mccallister84 on Feb 21, 2023 17:40:11 GMT -5
Ours don’t bother me. They do really bother our neighbor though. They’ve had quotes to redo them and according to what they’ve been told the most efficient way is to just dry wall over them which seems a bit insane to me.
We just got a quote to have ours removed and it was $6k. Not in our budget right now. In comparison painting walls or the same area we want scrapped is $4k. I hate our ceilings, but we will have to live with it for now.
Our ceilings are textured, but not heavily popcorn that I’ve seen in other homes. I actually prefer ours because they don’t show seems and imperfections. We have forced air vents in the ceiling (house is on a slab so no utilities in the floor). I do vacuum around the vents once in a while, but it’s really not a big deal.
We took ours down in our previous house because they had glitter (wtf) and looked awful since you could tell where someone had tried to touch up the ceiling with paint from previous water damage. Since the material was like dried spitballs, the paint didn't take very well. They were relatively easy to scrape off, and didn't make too much of a mess.
Totally an unpopular opinion... But my room growing up had glitter or rhinestones or something in them. And I loved them. And I weirdly still do. A few houses we looked at had them, and DH was adamant that we'd get them removed... thankfully we didn't buy one of those houses, so we didn't have to fight that battle.
But yes, if you do end up with a home with popcorn ceilings and needing to paint.. cutting in the corners is basically impossible.
Post by sillygoosegirl on Feb 21, 2023 18:12:18 GMT -5
We finally just had the last of our popcorn removed. It was a cobweb magnet, and if you ever accidently touched it, bits would crumble off and get everywhere. I don't love that every imperfection shows with the smooth ceilings, but it still feels like a grand improvement because at least crap doesn't stick to them and they don't crumble if you try to dust them.
In the part of the house remodeled this century by the previous owners, the ceiling has a brocade texture, which I like--it's a nice compromise with enough texture to hide imperfections, without being a total magnet for dirt and isn't crumbly--but apparently I don't like it enough to pay extra for it.
Post by strawberry on Feb 21, 2023 18:14:17 GMT -5
Naw. We have popcorn ceilings. I never even noticed them and don’t care about them. Also, Our house was built in 2002. Maybe it’s regional? We are in the Midwest.
Our house (built in 1978) had them when we bought, we had a leak that flowed into the basement ceiling so we paid a bit extra to the water damage remediation people to have them scraped downstairs. The upstairs we had drywall hung over in one room, then a couple years later had the rest scraped and repainted. The room with new drywall looks significantly better than the scraped areas but I prefer both to the original popcorn. I think it looks outdated, but if you don’t mind them I would just leave it. It made a huge mess and was a big pain, even with someone else doing all the work. At least with a 2002 build you don’t need to worry about asbestos!
We have removed them one room at a time, three rooms now (and the previous owners had done the kitchen, dining room, and powder room). It is hard work and messy. We did asbestos testing before starting (no asbestos, thankfully).
We did not re-texture the ceilings after scraping, just patched, primed, and painted. You can definitely see the seams and other imperfections, which I don't love, but the rooms feel much brighter and more modern now. We also added recessed lighting, and with the lights on you can't see the imperfections at all. The kitchen and dining room has some light texture (orange peel?) on it, and I think it looks the best, but my H did not want to do that on the other rooms.
We had previously dealt with some spots of water damage and a place where my husband broke the ceiling with a misstep in the attic. It was very difficult to repair those and one spot in particular was a big patch that we tried to re-texture to match the surrounding popcorn, but it looked awful - neither the color or the texture was a very good match.
Post by gretchenindisguise on Feb 21, 2023 18:50:13 GMT -5
We have popcorn in every single room except kitchen and bathrooms.
We hate it. We had water issues where we needed to fix ceilings in a few spots and it is so obvious because of the color difference. And we are working on painting the walls, but can't paint the ceiling. I think the colors would look very different if we could paint the ceilings too.
I had popcorn ceilings and when we did a reno in 2010, instead of scraping, the contractor put very thin drywall over the ceiling - maybe 1/8 inch?? The thinnest drywall possible. It looks great and very economical.
I wouldn’t mind popcorn ceilings all that much, but I think they tend to be on lower ceilings just given the architecture of homes of the era and the lower ceilings plus popcorn just makes it seem more dated.
My parents have textured walls and ceilings on the home they built in 2001. I think it was just builder standard stuff, not an upgrade. It’s like textured and then smoothed over.
I lived in a rental house in grad school that had textured ceilings in a scalloped pattern and I absolutely loved them.
I grew up in a home with popcorn ceilings and never understood the hate. Who is spending all this time looking at their ceilings? As a pro we also never had that weird echoey effect I sometimes get in my hardwood floors and all flat walls house. We also had knockdown texture on the walls and I liked looking for shapes in it. My friends spent tens of thousands on new drywall for their house to get rid of it and I just don't understand.
For maintenance when it was time to paint we painted them with a larger nap roller and it was as annoying as painting any ceiling but nothing special. No issues with staining or durability. When we had to cut out a section (because of bees in the attic!) they sold spray cans of texture at home depot and it matched fine. The house was built in the 70s and didn't have asbestos.
If you have hard flooring they can help dampen sound, which is a plus. I'm not a fan of how hard they are to clean, paint, etc. I helped my dad paint a house that had them on the first floor, and the amount of paint it took was unreal. Doable though with a high nap roller.
If I bought a house that had them, I would remove as much as possible before moving in. But whatever was left when I moved in would probably stay because it's too big a mess and hassle to remove when you and your stuff are in the space.
We are looking to buy a new home and honestly the popcorn ceilings are an issue for me. If they were cheap to replace that would be 1 think but we are talking about 8000
We took ours down in our previous house because they had glitter (wtf) and looked awful since you could tell where someone had tried to touch up the ceiling with paint from previous water damage. Since the material was like dried spitballs, the paint didn't take very well. They were relatively easy to scrape off, and didn't make too much of a mess.
This is the best description of popcorn ceilings I've ever read. Move to rename.
We took ours down in our previous house because they had glitter (wtf) and looked awful since you could tell where someone had tried to touch up the ceiling with paint from previous water damage. Since the material was like dried spitballs, the paint didn't take very well. They were relatively easy to scrape off, and didn't make too much of a mess.
Totally an unpopular opinion... But my room growing up had glitter or rhinestones or something in them. And I loved them. And I weirdly still do. A few houses we looked at had them, and DH was adamant that we'd get them removed... thankfully we didn't buy one of those houses, so we didn't have to fight that battle.
But yes, if you do end up with a home with popcorn ceilings and needing to paint.. cutting in the corners is basically impossible.
YES, I was thinking this, too. Our family room ceiling when I was little had little sparkles in it and I used to love to lie on the floor and look at it! I loved it and there's a nostalgia factor there. I wouldn't put them in today, but I have some fondness for them.
I don’t notice ceiling imperfections unless it’s really bad. Now I wonder if I’m missing something. I notice wall imperfections way more. I would probably pay to get rid of the popcorn ceiling if I bought a home with it. I lived in a rental house with it for a short time and it seemed so strange to me. The rooms were all only 7’ high so shorter than the 8’ rooms I was used to so I definitely noticed the ceiling more.
The builder in our subdivision does this (to this day), it’s like their signature or something. So odd. Anyway, our house has them on the second floor and it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought it would. We’ve been here about 1.5 years.
To be fair, we have 10 foot ceilings, so I think that helps. And our main floor doesn’t have ceilings (just painted black duct work), so I can’t say if it’d bother me in the main living area or with 8 ft ceilings.
One thing I DO know is I would never try to remove it myself and I’d hate the idea of paying someone so much for something so “not fun”, so I’d probably live with it forever.
Totally an unpopular opinion... But my room growing up had glitter or rhinestones or something in them. And I loved them. And I weirdly still do. A few houses we looked at had them, and DH was adamant that we'd get them removed... thankfully we didn't buy one of those houses, so we didn't have to fight that battle.
But yes, if you do end up with a home with popcorn ceilings and needing to paint.. cutting in the corners is basically impossible.
YES, I was thinking this, too. Our family room ceiling when I was little had little sparkles in it and I used to love to lie on the floor and look at it! I loved it and there's a nostalgia factor there. I wouldn't put them in today, but I have some fondness for them.
OMG you just reminded me of the walls in the family room of the house I grew up in! They had sparkles too, but it wasn’t popcorn texture. It was more of large bumps, but very smooth and not high. Kind of wavy, but not in a pattern. I have literally not thought of those walls in probably 30 years!
I have popcorn in about 75% of the house. I had them removed in the stairs, hallway, and one room when I moved in (as part of some other work and painting). A few years ago I had them drywalled over in the basement as part of a renovation. Popcorn ceilings are about the last thing I think of on a daily basis.
My condo has popcorn ceilings and the building was built in 2008 so they were obviously still a trend back then. It was one of the things that I thought about changing when we bought the place but now I don't really notice. I did just kill a spider on the ceiling and I don't think I'll ever quite get the guts off the popcorn, so I guess there's that.
I don't understand the hate either, but it was a very "in" thing back in the 60's. I remember as a little girl being absolutely fascinated by the sparkly popcorn ceilings--it reminded me of stars.
"Why would you ruin perfectly good peanuts by adding candy corn? That's like saying hey, I have these awesome nachos, guess I better add some dryer lint." - Nonny
Builders and contractors LOVE texture for walls and ceilings as it allows them do to a crappy job on finishing seams, etc. Texture hides a lot of imperfections.