Chances are good you are living in a home with popcorn ceilings and like most of us you may not be in love with them. If you are buying a new home you can pay an upgrade fee to get beautiful smooth, flat ceilings, and it could be well worth it if you loath the spray on effect of popcorn.

However, if you are already are stuck with popcorn throughout your home, rest assured that it can be removed! Be warned though – if you have a popcorn ceiling that has been painted you’re in for a long haul – while it can be done, it’s not an easy job! For the DIYer be prepared to put in the extra hours – or days – scraping. If you hire a professional expect to be paying more to cover their time to remove the painted stucco. If you have original untouched stucco or popcorn the job is more straight forward – when stucco is reactivated with water it can be scraped off easily. It’s a messy job involving scraping, sanding, plastering, priming and painting. Be prepared for a few days of dust – but it is well worth it. It’s amazing what a smooth white ceiling can do for a room that previously had outdated popcorn.

Removing it isn’t the only solution though – you can also cover it up! Brolly Renos recently did this to the living room pictured below as part of an ongoing transformation of a typical, suburban living room. The before ceiling is what we call a ‘knockdown’ ceiling texture – but it is essentially the same idea as popcorn – a spray on, or troweled on texture added to the ceiling to reduce construction costs.