Remove Texture from Ceilings the Easiest Way EVER!!!

Want to remove texture or “popcorn” from your ceilings to create a brighter, more open and modern feel? I have done it quite a few times and I have found, by far, the easiest way to do it.

This post is sponsored by Wagner. All opinions are my own.

When I redid my husbands office last year, I wanted to remove texture from the ceiling. Popcorn ceilings make rooms look so dated! The original idea was to hide the imperfections of the ceiling, which makes sense. However, all the little bumps and ridges from the texture create shadows that make the ceiling seem lower and darker. And that brings the whole room down. When you remove texture, or “popcorn” ceilings it really brightens and opens the room and makes it look much more fresh and modern.

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So, to remove popcorn ceilings, you need to get them wet. The more soaked they are, the easier they come down. Also, this is going to get messy, like really messy, so cover up what you don’t want to have to throughly clean later. I am currently redoing this entire den, so everything needed to be removed and all the walls and floors needed to be completed cleaned anyway, so I didn’t worry about it too much. However, you’ll notice that I bought a disposable coverall suit for myself. Mainly because I wasn’t replacing all of myself ;).

Materials & Supplies

Flexio paint sprayer

Water

Putty Knife/Paint Scraper

Plastic Covering (Optional)

Disposable Suit (Optional)

Dust Mask and Goggles

Spackle

Sandpaper

Paint*

*I used Behr Marquee in flat Dutch White. More on the wall paint coming soon!

So, back to the whole “soaking the ceiling” business. When I removed the ceiling in the office, I used a spray bottle. It worked, but my hands were SOO sore after about a quarter of the ceiling was done. I had to spray so much water to get the ceiling wet enough to be scraped off. When I took the kitchen ceiling down, I decided to use an old paint sprayer and see if that was faster. It was, however, that sprayer wasn’t very strong and had a long hose that got damaged going up and down the ladder and frankly, was still a lot of work.

So, I had seen some info on Wagner paint sprayers so I contacted them to see if I could try out their sprayer for this project to see if it was better. You guys, no joke – this was so much faster and easier.

I used the Flexio paint sprayer and it was so nice. There was no hose to get poked or damaged, and it has a bunch of options on how high and powerful you can spray. You basically just fill it with water, aim and pull the trigger!

I filled this baby up with water and turned it to 12 – the most powerful position. It was awesome. There is also a dial to adjust your spray width. So you can control the coverage a little better than with most sprayers. I turned that to the widest width possible since I was working on such a large space.

After you spray the ceiling with the water, you can take a scraper and just scrape it off. Again, the more soaked the easier it is. Here is a time lapse video of me soaking and scrapping.

See how easy that is?

After you remove all the texture, you need to fill and sand any holes and cracks. This is the worst part. Ugh! I tried sanded with my palm sander but that didn’t work at all and broke my palm sander. So, I had to go back to a regular sander.

Then clean the ceiling and remove any dust or dirt leftover. I actually just filled the sprayer up again and turned the dial to a bit less powerful and resprayed the scraped ceiling. Then I took a big tile sponge and wiped the ceiling down again.

Now it’s time to paint. I once again, used my sprayer and it went so much faster than rolling it on. Plus, it’s so much less messy and goes on smoother. Easy peasy. I’ll have more info on the painting (including how to paint textured walls) soon! Spoiler alert – I used the Flexio paint sprayer to clean and paint everything! Look at that gloriousness!!!