Popcorn ceilings have a unique texture that looks like there is popcorn affixed to the ceiling. If damage or age strikes and you need to retexture popcorn ceilings, plan to scrape away the existing popcorn ceiling and start over. It's virtually impossible to patch a popcorn ceiling because the color and the texture won't blend in properly. Popcorn ceiling retexturing is a messy project, so plan it for a weekend when you can move all of your furniture out of the room.
Instructions
1. Cover the walls and floor with tarps, dropcloths or plastic sheets, and secure the edges of the wall and floor coverings to the wall with masking tape. This helps protect your walls and floors from dust caused by removing the existing popcorn ceiling texture and from the texture you will apply later.
2. Scrape the existing popcorn texture from the ceiling. Using a large spackling knife is an easy way to tackle this project, although you can use anything with a thin, flat edge that is good for scraping. To avoid making a huge mess, have someone hold a trash bag under the area where you scrape so that the popcorn ceiling texture can fall into the trash bag instead of on your floor.
3. Fill any dents, holes or imperfections with spackling compound. The ceiling doesn't have to be perfect, but you do want it to look as smooth as possible so that your new popcorn ceiling texture applies evenly.
4. Apply one coat of primer to the ceiling. Let it dry for at least 4 hours.
5. Wear a paint suit, which will help you avoid getting popcorn ceiling texture all over your skin and hair. Put this on right before you start to mix the texture. A paint suit consists of a jumpsuit with long pants and long sleeves, a head sock, and safety glasses.
6. Add ceiling texture to a large bucket, and mix it according to the directions on the package. A paint mixer attachment on the end of a drill works great to mix the ceiling texture until it is the consistency of thick oatmeal.
7. Fill a hopper, which you can rent from your local home improvement store, with the ceiling texture, and turn it on.
8. Blow popcorn ceiling texture onto an old piece of cardboard first so that you can practice your aim and look at the way the texture blows out of the hopper before you apply it to your ceiling.
9. Spray a light layer of popcorn texture onto the ceiling, allow it to dry and then add another coat of texture if necessary. Spraying too much popcorn texture can cause it to drip off the ceiling, ruining the work that you did.
Tags: ceiling texture, popcorn ceiling texture, popcorn ceiling, existing popcorn, , existing popcorn ceiling, paint suit