someone decided to do a popcorn ceiling in the 70s remodeled kitchen of our first home. it was truly uninspiring. the good news was the ceilings were 10' high so we just dropped them down to 9' in that room.

this doesn't work for everyone obviously, but maybe yours can just be sheet rocked? i have no idea if this is a viable option but i thought it couldn't hurt. good luck. i will never figure out how anyone decides a popcorn ceiling is an attractive option.

I've sheetrocked some pretty bad stuff before--I don't see why it wouldn't work on popcorn.

Beadboard might look good, but it's less forgiving that something you can just glop goo onto.

We had our popcorn ceiling tested by a local university and found no asbestos-- so we can scrape it away freely (after wetting it down the stuff just falls away).

If you can't find an affordable testing site, putting sheetrock over it works well and only lowers your ceiling slightly. We ended up putting up fresh sheetrock in our kitchen anyway because we moved so much lighting that what remained was too messy to patch.

We had popcorn ceiling in the kit of our last house. We had a sheetrock person come in and put up very thin (?1/4 in.) sheetrock right over the old.

We had lovel popcorn ceilings in our whole 1970's ranch house when moved in. Yummy. Our ceilings are oddly low at 91" and we weren't planning on remodeling the kitchen then so putting up new rock was out. We scraped. Wet it down, wait a few minutes, then scrape away. It wasn't that hard, but it's awkward to do. DH didn't care if it was asbestos or not, but he wore a mask. Looking back, I can't believe I let him do it with the possibility of asbestos.

I'm guessing you have low ceilings also, but if yours are higher, new sheetrock would be my suggestion.

Have it tested before you make any decisions.

Ours came out negative thankfully. also 60s house.

If you decide to scrape, do the whole house. You will love it.

another thread. Lots of types of popcorn.

Here is a link that might be useful: Removing 'Popcorn' Ceiling (home repair forum)

you can have it tested for $30-$50.. from what I recall that's what I paid.. If its clear it is super easy to remove and they even make scrapers with bags attached to catch the pieces... minimize the mess.. it be messier and take more time to try to cover it up than scrape it off..

you might need to do some repairs or fill in some cracks that aren't as evident with the popcorn over them.. but the scraping part is a piece of cake.. and kinda fun actually..

If it hasn't been painted it scrapes right off but if they painted it, it is probably easier to cover with thin drywall.

Does anyone have the popcorn ceilings with glitter additive? That still has a following in my neck of the woods.

Even if you have your ceilings tested and they're found to have asbestos, you can still remove it yourself in most states. Whether or not you consider it safe is a different matter, of course, but as far as what's allowed, it is usually possible for a homeowner to do it. The key, as others have said, is to get it really wet. It just "glops" off when you scrape it. If you google the process, you'll see instructions for how to catch the mess, keep dust from spreading through your home, and how to safely dispose of it.

We had all the popcorn ceilings in our house tested for about $200. Only one little section in our entry way was found to have asbestos, but we've been systematically working on the rest of it. Unfortunately, a lot of ours was also painted, and that requires a lot more elbow grease to remove! We've decided that we're going to cover our dining room ceiling with 1/4" drywall rather than scraping it. When we get to the entry way area with asbestos, we're going to do it ourselves and just be very careful about it.

we had drywall mud, popcorn, wallpaper, then lath and plaster. after taking down a small section, we decided to cover it with 1/2" osb. we are going to put up either mdf beadboard or armstrong tin look ceiling tiles.

palimpsest, are you saying that people are actually putting popcorn in>??? with glitter?
I am going to have nightmares now ;)

Our last remaining glitter popcorn ceiling is in the pantry, and we plan to leave it as is for a kind of souvenir :)

I love the glitter popcorn but it gets so dirty.

Even in houses I've been in with popcorn, though, kitchen and bathrooms usually were left smooth. It doesn't belong in a kitchen.

Our kitchen/family room had a popcorn ceiling (8')that had been painted. Drywallers came in and barely sanded it and put 3 coats of mud over it. I opted for a knockdown texture to match the rest of the house. Why the builder opted for popcorn in there baffled me. Glad to be rid of it.

We have a neighbor with a home built in the mid-1970's. Their ceiling tested positive for abestos so they opted to just cover it up rather than scrape.

Our home, built in the late 1980's, has the oh-so-lovely glitter popcorn throughout. We've been slowly removing it. As others have mentioned, it's messy but definitely do-able.

The thing about removing or covering the popcorn is that is seems like you gain a foot of ceiling height and the room automatically becomes lighter. It's unbelievable.

I hate my current popcorn ceilings, but I do feel nostalgic about my childhood bedroom glitter popcorn!