"What do you mean it isn't popcorn"

What do you mean it’s not popcorn.

Project #1 – Scraping Popcorn Ceilings – Failure

Upon finally receiving the keys to the house, the first order of business was to attack the smell created by over 35 years of smoking by the previous owner.  Step one, scrape the nicotine stained acoustic (popcorn) ceilings.  We know…we know our hearts broke too when we came to the conclusion that we would have to remove this awesomely nostalgic marker of a true mid-century home, but we’ve come to grips.

We were so excited to begin the transformation of our mid-century home to our mid-century modern dream home.  Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.  The project began with much online research filled with reading blog posts and watching Youtube videos of other brave souls who attempted to remove this beautiful marker of outdated homes from across America.

With plastic drop cloths laid, one fancy scraping tool bought and masks and goggles on we were set to begin scraping.  Step one: wet the ceilings to make the popcorn come down like butter (it’s funny how many people actually said this stuff should come down “like butter”).  After waiting ten or so minutes we took the first pass of the scraper. NOTHING HAPPENED.  Step 2: Maybe we need to use more water. Ten or so minutes later NOTHING.  After much debate we figured this was not going to happen.

PROJECT #1 – Failure.

So we hired a painting contractor to come in and scrape and texture the ceilings.  It took them four entire days to scrape the ceilings and another three to do the texture.  But it turned out fantastic. 

We later found out from the contractor that the reason the popcorn did not “come down like butter” was due to it being stucco (yes the stuff that goes on the outside of your house, not the inside).