The SUPER EASY Way to Get Rid of Popcorn Ceilings

We have been busy, busy, busy with demolition work!  We’re about done knocking things down and are ready to start putting things back up.  As most renovations go, we keep adding things to the “to do” list because “we have the space torn apart, we might as well” {insert project here}.  Can you relate? {Note: This is a sponsored post.  Please see disclosure details at the end of the post.}

One of the projects we’ve discussed but kept putting off was the darn textured ceilings.  I called them popcorn ceilings, but my dad was quick to point out that they’re not technically popcorn ceilings, but textured ceilings.  They’re not very pretty, but they’re not totally awful – I just don’t like them and they don’t reflect light well at all.  After reading lots of information online about how to remove popcorn/textured ceilings, I was less than excited about the idea.  Most of the instructions I found said to spray your ceiling with hot water, let it sit 5-10 minutes, then use a scraper to scrape it off.  It’s a wet, messy project that will ruin your carpets if any of the wet drywall is able to dry on the floor.  Also, my dad said that once we scraped off the ceiling texture we’d most likely have to re-tape the whole ceiling and patch spots since scraping is rough on the drywall.  We were kind of in a pickle, though, because there are some areas of the living room ceiling where the drywall tape is showing through and separating from the drywall.  It’s really not pretty.  Our choices were to either patch that area and paint over the whole ceiling or to start the scraping process.  If you paint over popcorn/textured ceiling, it’s apparently super difficult to remove thereafter.  Hence, our “now or never” conundrum.  I really didn’t want to add another huge project to our schedule {spraying/scraping/re-taping/patching/painting the ceilings}.

Enter: the best.solution.ever. {Seriously, y’all, sometimes my husband just grinds on my last nerve but sometimes that man is a bonafide genius.  This time is one of the latter, thankfully.}  A few weeks ago we got a Power Pro Drywall Sander on Amazon.  I’ve never used a drywall sander before {Uh, probably mostly because I’ve never hung drywall.  Shocker, right?!}… I’m pretty excited to try this bad boy out, but we have a week or two before the drywall gets delivered.  Basically, it’s like a handheld sander on steroids… bigger, better, you get it.  As we were discussing the popcorn ceilings once again this week, Hubby said we should try the drywall sander on the ceiling.  I may have given him a look of “that’s either a really weird idea or totally genius”.

The drywall sander is large and fairly heavy, so I let Hubby give it a try {pretty sure my arms would get sore holding it over my head…. although I could use a good workout}.  We snapped the drywall sander together, hooked it to the shop vac and started it up for its inaugural sanding.  The manufacturer advertises that this product is made for ceilings, but I wasn’t sure if it would work well with textured ceilings or only for new drywall installation.  The ceiling in our test area was trashed anyway so we had nothing to lose.  To my surprise, it actually worked REALLY WELL on the ceilings!  We only did a small test area in the bathroom {probably about a 4 foot square}.  Hubby tested one area sanding down so that there was just a tiny bit of texture left {making it a knockdown look} and one area sanding all of the texture off.  We both liked the appearance of the knockdown look better, and it’ll be more forgiving as we work with larger spaces.  It was {of course} still somewhat dusty as we worked, so make sure you put on your safety googles/mask if you’re going to be using the drywall sander over your head.

I’ll update you as we progress through the house sanding down from textured to knockdown ceilings.  I’m so excited to transform our ceilings so easily – I had kind of given up on changing them.  If you have the textured ceilings like we do and are looking for a change, trust me when I say the time you’ll save compared to scraping by hand is WORTH.EVERY.PENNY.  Oh, and I’ll let you know when we actually use it to help with the drywall hanging process.  In the meantime this sander is going to get some serious usage on our ceilings!

Note: Our textured ceiling was created with drywall mud and has not been painted over.  This may not work if your ceiling was created with another material or painted over.  After reading the Amazon reviews, it looks like other customers have also used it on textured ceilings with great success.

Disclosure: I received the Power Pro Electric Drywall Sander in exchange for my review.  However, all opinions shared are completely my own.  I will never endorse a product I don’t truly approve of.  For more information on my sponsorship and disclosure, click here.