Hello,
I just bought a townhouse (first place! woo hoo! Death to rent payments, hello mortgage payments!). The place is fantastic, but it has the stucco(?) ceilings. At least I think its called stucco…its the bumpy/prickly white stuff they useto put on the ceilings. Is that called stucco? Or is there another technical name for that?
Anyway, I would like to scrape that stuff off, and restore the smoothness of the ceiling. Can someone let me know how I can do that (explanation here, or a link), and what materials I need? I remember seeing one of those HGTV shows where they scraped it off with a…well…scraper. But I missed the part of how they made the stuff soft and mooshy.
Thanks,
-Alex
Replies
Little hand sprayer like a Windex bottle and a 6" drywall knife works for me. Keep it held shallow so you don't gouge.
Will need to be skim coated afterwards for a nice finish.
Having said that, the best drywall guy I use can skim coat over a light texture, and make it disappear.
Forrest - not a drywall guy
popcorn texture
Cover floor with plastic, wet and scrape.
There will be gouges and the joints aren't paint ready. Skim coat, prime and paint or:
patch and use another method of texture
Stucco is cementitious coating with sandy texture, used on exterior walls. What you have is accoustical ceilings.
Most of them consist of soft and rather large (1/4") particles of material kind of like vermiculite stuck to the ceiling with a soupy mixture like drywall mud. This kind can be re-wetted by spraying and scraped off fairly easily - unless it has been painted. Pre-1975 it could contain asbestos.
Some of them were a harder material sort of like stucco. This kind is very diffucult to remove and might better be handled by applying a skim coat of plaster.
Either way, it is a messy job and a hassle to dispose of. I'd call in a specialist who will do it in 1/4 the time it would take a DIYer. Unless you value your time at $10 per hour, a pro will be more cost effective and you get your condo back in a shorter time.