If you are a smoker and you live in a house with a popcorn ceiling, you should do two things. First, you should quit smoking because it is really, really bad for you. After you quit smoking, you should remove your popcorn ceiling because it is really, really absorbent.
I have at times, regretted buying this house. This is not surprising as I am an over analyzing yet impulsive person. Not always a good combination but it makes for an interesting life. I really dislike the smell of smoke. Having grown up with a heavy smoker, I have legitimate cancer concerns. I didn’t realize how much “3rd hand” smoke there was in the house, finding the musty odor to be dominant at the time. We are trying to remove or seal as much as we can. Studies have shown that you can’t clean out the toxic agents, removing and repainting is pretty much the only way to get rid of the potential carcinogens. After we get the dusty part done, we will remove and replace the duct work. Right now, we are changing to the most powerful filters we can find. To learn more about 3rd hand smoke and give yourself more things to worry about in this otherwise relaxing world, the Cleveland Clinic has a good article here. When we first pulled up the carpets, even with our N95 masks, the smoke smell was overpowering. We even went so far as to call a restoration service, something we as die hard DIYers wouldn’t normally consider. This particular company said they only did smoke remediation after a fire not after chain smokers to we pressed on.
The previous owners of the house not only used a wood stove that may or may not have had a significant amount of creosote, they must have considered smoking a passion, not just a habit. The ceiling is yellow. It’s hard to see just how yellow until you start scraping. After you scrape, the slurry smells like plastery nicotine. I guess what they say is true, smoke rises. Maybe it was heat rises but either way, if you are trying to eliminate smoke smell from a house, you will need to scrape the popcorn ceiling.
The original plan was to Kilz everything maybe even fashion some sort of “Kilz” bomb to cover it all. The nooks and crannies of the popcorn ceiling made me rethink this plan and even though it is a filthy job, the popcorn ceiling had to go.
At night when I lay awake and question my life choices, including the one to buy a hoarder/smoker house with falling down everything, I find myself thinking about popcorn ceilings. I have never met someone who says, “boy I really like the looks of that cottage cheese texture on the ceiling.” As a child who jumped on her bed even though it was forbidden, I would hit my head on the very sharp “textured” ceiling. I am sure I will eat these words after we eventually paint these ceilings and I will become obsessed with every imperfection. I have a hard time believing it can look worse than they did before we started and I know they will smell better regardless of the “smoothness.”
You may have read about our initial foray into ceiling scraping here. There are two major things we did differently this time.
Popcorn ceiling removal, part deux
First, we put down a drop cloth. We used a cheap, thin, plastic drop cloth. It worked well and the static caught a lot of the dust. Clean-up was a breeze, we just folded the drop cloth over and whisked the mess into a bag.
Second, we used a larger sprayer. This 1 gallon sprayer was much more effective in evenly wetting the ceiling. It was more ergonomic to pump the handle vs squeezing the spray bottle. without being unwieldy.
This job is still makes gigantic mess, if you have a shower cap/bouffant cap, use it. Eyewear and a mask as also essential, getting plaster in your eyes and lungs is a bad idea. As you can see, the ceiling look so much better. I can’t wait to Kilz everything. I am even considering using the oil based Kilz on the subfloor.
If anyone needs be to take some dark and blurry photos of their house, send me a message!
The right tools always make the job easier. If you are removing a popcorn ceiling, learn from our mistakes! The amount of dust we created by scraping too dry and without the static/dust collecting drop cloth was ridiculous. You don’t want to over wet the ceiling either but this mist sprayer made a hug difference.
