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Painting ceilings is the Devil's Work even when they're smooth plaster--ask me how I know this. :-) I second Taco's advice and just give them a fresh coat with a sprayer after making any necessary repairs. If the floors are in good shape, I'd just buy some nice area rugs to tie things together, then pick a color to paint the walls inspired by the rugs/decor. Save the big money for the things that, despite the best of inspection reports, can and will go wrong/break/reach the end of their useful lives on your dime. Said situations will arise more quickly than you think they will. It's part of the joy of homeownership.
Judging from the pictures you shared, you bought a very pretty house. It seems like your biggest project is going to be removing the wallpaper and prepping the walls for paint if the current paper is not in keeping with the tastes of you and your wife. Work from the top down, slowly but surely, you two will turn it into a home. Also, it helps to keep the motivation ball rolling if you complete one room/area at a time. It feels so good to have one space--even if it's just a bathroom--completed while renovating a house and living in it at the same time.
If you do not have crown molding, you can either remove the popcorn or possibly even leave it and cover with 1/4" drywall. You may have to scrape it off to get the drywall to sit evenly.
If you want to remove it, use a garden sprayer soak it, wait, soak it again, if it does not just fall off at this point use a soft plastic scraper, a towel or other soft tool so you do not rip up tie ceiling too much. It was often used over brand new perfectly good ceilings. It was in style for a while. It is not just to cover defects. However you will likely damage the cleaning removing it.
Another option is just tear out the entire ceiling and hang new drywall.
Always start at the ceiling and work your way down. Paint, plaster, cleaners, etc will drip down, you do not want them on your newly performed work.
I would agree with leaving the hardwood floor alone. Unless it is Pergo or simlar, then take it out and see what is under it.
My first time trying to deal with popcorn ceilings I decided to paint them. I bought a special paint and roller specifically for popcorn ceilings. Worked great for 90% of the room, then the pain soaked popcorn let go in one area and fell on my face. There is nto putting it back up, so I had to remove it all (after removing the paint form my face).
I had a house with popcorn ceilings a couple houses ago. We just painted them and I actually thought they looked quite good. I always paint my ceilings, a couple shades lighter than one of my wall colors. When the popcorn ceilings were painted they looked much better -- part of the problem is that they look old and dirty, in my opinion. But painting them took care of that.
If the floors are real wood, could they be stripped and stained to match together?
Are you doing all of these things before you move your furniture in? Or are you doing them as you get to them?
If you're at all willing to try, you can easily do the ceilings yourself and save a ton of money. If you're able to tackle them before you actually have to move all your stuff in, it's a home run.
I've removed about half of the popcorn ceilings in our 1970's house myself. The only bad part is the mess. It also really, really hurts my neck, but I'm in my 50's and everything hurts my neck. The project involves lots of clean-up and lots of motrin.
I've learned that the key for me was using a plastic scraper/putty knife instead of metal. (And of course wetting it) The one large room where I used the metal had dozens of small gouges, which then had to be spackled and sanded. Huge PIA. Then a contractor told me about the plastic knife, and in the four rooms I've done since I only had one gouge. Our ceiling under the popcorn was in perfect shape. 2 coats of ceiling paint and they look fantastic. One more piece of advice if you do it...it's easier to clean up while the stuff you scraped off is still wet, before it gets dry and powdery. I put down newspapers and then just roll them up with the debris.
At least around here, popcorn really dates a house in a bad way. It's not skilled work at all and super easy to get a great result. For us it's been worth doing.
They’re still building brand new houses in my area with popcorn ceilings, so I guess they must not bother too many people. Usually only the higher end homes have smooth finished ceilings.
thank you all very much for the helpful advise. I wish i can reply to every single post!
to the most common questions. yes the house will be empty for about another month or so! we did a ton of research on the removal and we will tackle that. The plastic knife tip was a great one! i was scared to make gauges as mudding or plastering looked like a PITA.
we did think of just putting new dry wood, but that popcorn ceiling is just pretty heavy, would it not cause any damage or strain to put up even 1/4 dry wall on it?
for sure there will be plenty of costs go go around. example these condensers are "past useful life" per inspection https://imgur.com/a/pDGsT5o
and the roof looks like it's only got a couple of years with the curling that's going on https://imgur.com/0C6c0Ik
also really worried about that bedroom cathedral being more work than we anticipate to rip up the popcorn and seeing the damage under. that ghosting and small leaks will probably mean new roof and insulation soon.. I dont know. I have yet to bring a roofer to the house.
I agree with the advice to pass on some of the cosmetic stuff and instead build/maintain an emergency fund. Within 5 years of moving into our home (which we still own), we had to replace the roof, drill a new well, do a major septic repair and install central a/c due to my husband's respiratory problems. (TG we had the duct work in place at least.) It seemed like every time we turned around, there was another major expense. Even if you don't have septic and/or a well, some major project is always lurking around the corner. Good luck with the new house!
we are in the process of purchasing a house and have already got the loan and riding our out to closing next month
house it two floors with 3 beds upstairs and LR,FM,DR and BR downstairs total sqft in the house is 1600ish
We need to install
-hardwood floors downstairs only (remove all the hard wood already there, they have different colors)
-Install carpet upstairs only
-paint all the walls
-remove popcorn ceiling (no asbestos per lab) and the freakin thing is in all the house
I would imagine do the ceiling first, then hardwood, then paint?
this project will probably cost us near 15k in NJ but we need to get someone to actually come out. this is just a far left field estimate we did on our own. It's roughly 500sqft of carpet and 550 for hardwood engineered.
does that sound about right? i know bad question as it varies a lot.
I did much of what you were proposing to my house when I bought it. Here's what I would recommend, especially if you plan on living in the house while renovating it:
You don't need to do popcorn first if you are hiring a professional. I know this from experience. They can remove that stuff in a furnished room and not leave a speck of the material behind. If you are doing that removal yourself though, I'd make that your #1 priority. Then walls, then flooring. Work top down.
Mind you, if you are DIY much of this, you don't need to do ALL the ceilings, then ALL the walls, then ALL the floors. You can do this on a room-by-room basis. I'd actually recommend you do it like that. My wife and I needed a "sanctuary" from the madness that was our home renovation. It was a room or two that was in a "finished" state so we had some normalcy in our lives.
As for the hardwoods - removing them can be a real PITA. Nail downs... glue downs... those are tough to remove. So be aware of what you are getting yourself into.
Also, a pro-tip for popcorn ceiling... I removed so much paneling in my house in multiple rooms that I paid out of pocket for a contractor to do the sheetrock in most of those rooms. And since he was already there with a less than a day's work, we came to an agreement to put 3/8in or 1/4in sheetrock OVER the popcorn ceiling. This was doable in one of the rooms since there was no crown molding. The cost of removing the popcorn vs sheetrocking over it... it is cheaper to sheetrock over it.
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Good luck with the new house!
