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Emptied bedroom with canvas cloths over the whole floor and plastic taped across the doorway, half the ceiling above scraped back to bare board and half still carrying its old white sprayed finish

Popcorn Ceiling Removal in Boerne, TX: Scraped, Skimmed and Finished

Getting the old finish off is the straightforward part. Most of the work is in the ceiling underneath it, and that's what decides how yours looks when we're done.

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Emptied bedroom with canvas cloths over the whole floor and plastic taped across the doorway, half the ceiling above scraped back to bare board and half still carrying its old white sprayed finish

What Popcorn Ceiling Removal Costs, Start to Finish

Two prices get quoted for this job and they aren't the same piece of work. One is a scrape, where the old finish comes off and your ceiling is left bare for somebody else to pick up. The other is the whole thing, scraped and skimmed flat and handed back ready for paint. Boerne Drywall prices popcorn ceiling removal in Boerne, TX both ways, and we'll tell you which one you're actually asking about.

Most people want the second one. Whatever went up there was covering the taping underneath and it usually covered it well, so once it's off, every joint and every screw head is out in the open.

One thing comes before all of it. If your ceiling has been up a good while, it gets tested before a scraper goes near it, and that part is worth reading properly.

What We Look At Before Anything Comes Off Your Ceiling

Popcorn is a sprayed acoustic finish, and you'll hear the trade call it stipple as well. It went on quickly, it hid the joints underneath, and it took a little of the echo out of a room. What matters to you now is what's holding it up there.

Why an older ceiling gets tested first

An older sprayed ceiling can contain asbestos, and nobody can tell by looking at it. So on an older house your ceiling gets tested before any of it comes down, and a test is the only way to know. A certified inspector takes a sample and sends it to a lab, and testing isn't work we do. If it comes back clear, we get started. If it doesn't, taking that ceiling off is a specialty called abatement, and it belongs to a firm that does abatement and nothing else.

What usually turns up once the finish is off

Under most of these ceilings is ordinary board, taped and screwed off the way it was left. Sometimes the joints were only ever coated enough to disappear under the spray, which means more skimming for us and no difference to you once it's painted. Now and then there's an old water mark nobody had seen in years, and we'll show you that before we cover it up.

Before a Scraper Goes Near Your Ceiling

How long your ceiling has been up there, since an older one gets tested first
How thick the finish is, and how evenly it was laid on in the first place
Whether the board above it was properly finished, or coated just enough to disappear
How high your ceiling runs, and whether it's flat, vaulted or stepped
What's fixed through it: fans, lights, vents and the trim around them
What can leave your room, and what has to stay and be covered where it stands

Why the Ceiling Underneath Is Most of the Work

Scraping is hard work and it isn't complicated. We wet the finish down and take it off in sections, so it comes away onto the cloths instead of hanging in the air. At that point your job looks nearly finished, and most of the work is still ahead of us.

Bare ceiling seen from below after the old finish has been taken off, the taped joints and filled screw lines showing as pale bands across the board, a wide knife and a mud pan on a cloth-covered floor beneath

What's left is the bare board and taped joints the texture was covering. Every screw and every soft spot in the old coating is on show too, and a ceiling gives all of that away far more readily than a wall does.

Keeping the ceiling mess in one room

This is the messiest thing we do in a house somebody lives in, so the setup earns its time. Containment means plastic taped across your doorways rather than propped in them, the vents covered, and cloths from the work back to the door. Done properly, the room next to yours stays clean.

What goes on once your ceiling is bare

The joints get recoated, the screws get filled, and the whole surface is skimmed and sanded until it reads flat. Then it's primed, because bare compound and old painted board take paint differently. From there you can leave it flat and white, which is what most people choose, or we can spray a light finish to match the rest of your house.

Why Two Popcorn Ceilings the Same Size Price Differently

Two rooms with the same square footage overhead can come back a long way apart, and almost none of that is the scraping. It's what your ceiling needs afterward, and how hard the room is to work in while you're living in it.

What a Popcorn Ceiling Job Is Like While You Live in the House

One room goes out of use while we're in it, and you'll want to stay out of that room. Everything else in your house carries on as normal, and that comes down to how the room gets set up.

How your room gets set up

  • Furniture out where it can go, and covered where it stays
  • Plastic taped over your doorways and across the vents in that room
  • Cloths over the whole floor, and up the walls where the ceiling meets them
  • Fans, lights and vent covers taken down and set aside rather than worked around
  • The finish taken off wet, so it lands on the cloths instead of hanging in the air
  • Debris bagged and carried out as we go, not stacked in your hallway

Does taking a popcorn ceiling down do anything for resale?

It's the reason plenty of people call us, and the honest answer is that a flat white ceiling reads as looked-after where a popcorn one reads as dated. Whether that shows up in what somebody pays for your house isn't ours to promise. What we can say is that it's one of the cheaper changes you can make to a room, and that it's far easier done with the house empty.

What People Ask Us About Popcorn Ceiling Removal

What does popcorn ceiling removal cost in Boerne?

Scraped bare and left for somebody else to finish, it's $1.25 to $2 per square foot. Scraped, skimmed flat and handed back ready for paint, it's $2.25 to $5.50 per square foot. Where you land inside the second band is mostly how much the joints underneath need once they're uncovered.

What does one room come to?

A bedroom ceiling of about 180 square feet is $400 to $1,000 finished. A large living area, call it 500 square feet, is $1,100 to $2,750. Both of those are your ceiling handed back ready for paint rather than scraped and left.

What about the ceilings in your whole house?

The ceilings of a single-story house, around 1,600 square feet of them, run $3,500 to $8,500 finished. Vaulted ceilings and a two-story entry push you above that, because the height changes what we work off. Doing the whole lot in one go costs less than booking them separately.

Should an older ceiling be tested for asbestos first?

Yes, and it's the first thing we'll say to you. A certified inspection is $250 to $750. That's what a certified inspector charges, testing isn't work we do, and a test is the only way to know. If it comes back clear we get started, and if it doesn't, the work belongs to a firm that does abatement.

Is popcorn ceiling removal a big job?

It's disruptive rather than difficult. Your room gets emptied and sealed off and you won't want to use it while we're in there, but the rest of the house carries on as normal. Plenty of people do it a room or two at a time, and there's nothing wrong with spreading it out.

Can you cover a popcorn ceiling instead of taking it off?

You can, and it's worth knowing about. New board goes up over the old ceiling, which leaves the finish where it is and gives you a flat surface underneath. It costs more than a scrape and it drops your ceiling height a little. We'll price it both ways and say which one we'd do.

Ceiling and Wall Jobs We Do Around Boerne

Ceiling Repair

A seam starting to show overhead, or a corner that's begun to bow.

What a sag in your drywall ceiling means →

Drywall Texture

Orange peel, knockdown, skip trowel and the smooth finishes, matched to what's on your walls.

Why Texas walls are textured, and which finish is on yours →

Drywall Repair

Cracks, holes, dents and the old patch somebody filled flat and never finished back.

What a drywall crack means, and how we close it →

Drywall Installation

New board in a house you already live in: a wall opened up, a room going back together.

New drywall in a room you already live in →

Drywall Repair in Comfort

Limestone and timber along High Street, and drywall in the houses around it.

Drywall repair in Comfort →

Drywall Repair in Bulverde

Comal County, where the old dry-laid rock fences run along the property lines.

Drywall repair in Bulverde →
Homeowner standing in her own living room looking up at a flat white ceiling, a floor lamp and the top of a sofa in the frame, soft daylight from a window off to one side

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Tell us how many rooms and roughly how big they are, and whether you want them scraped or finished. The form reaches us, and so does 830-357-7353.

The popcorn comes off, and the ceiling underneath is finished flat.

Call Us Now! 830-357-7353