HOW TO REMOVE POPCORN CEILINGS LIKE A PRO!! Smooth Skim Coat DIY

When it comes to removing popcorn ceilings , preparation is key .

And as you can see , I've already done quite a bit .

I used my new 3 3000 tape and plastic dispenser to mask off my walls and my floors .

And I'll be sure to leave a link down in the description to all of the tools and supplies that you'll need for this project .

All in all I did take a little bit more time prepping everything , but I would rather do this than make a huge mess and spend longer cleaning up .

And my next step is to spray everything down before I scrape it .

This step is super important .

I added a little bit of dish soap and a lot of water to this backpack sprayer and I used it to wet the ceilings .

You want to make sure that these are moist enough that the texture releases from the dry wall , but they're not so wet that the dry wall underneath gets damaged when you scrape .

And especially in older homes , use an asbestos test kit before you remove popcorn ceilings and make sure to use a respirator for this job to scrape my ceilings I'm using my trusty 12 inch or 14 inch drywall knife .

I'm looking for the texture to come off in sheets like this .

That means that the texture is wet enough , although I do notice a little bit of dust .

So I'm gonna go ahead and wet these one more time .

Oh , so this is exactly what we're looking for .

The texture is coming off in sheets and there's really not much dust hanging in the air .

This is why soaking the ceilings and letting them set for about 20 minutes before you scrape is so important as you work , you should find the right angle with your tool .

But if you notice you're doing any damage to the paper on the dry wall that's underneath that ceiling texture , make sure and wait , let everything dry out and then scrape it .

It's pretty dry here in the Southern California Desert .

So I had to re wet my ceiling as I went .

If I started to notice that the ceiling texture started to flake off rather than come off in sheets , I would then wet the next section .

I also gave this wide 24 inch knife that's used for knocked down wall textures to try .

But I ended up switching back to the dry wall knife even though it's not as wide .

I found that I was a little bit more precise and the blade is a little bit more rigid and stays really flat .

And I know this is random timing .

But I want to warn everybody that whenever this texture falls off the ceiling , it's really wet and slippery .

So make sure and be careful when you're walking around , especially if you're using a ladder or a step stool .

And now we're getting down to our final step of this popcorn ceiling removal , which is taking care of the corners .

I got most of it with the drywall knife , but I came back with one of those nine in one or 15 in one paint tools to really get into the corners and get them super clean .

If you don't have one of these tools already grab one because they come in handy all the time during paint and dry wall projects .

And in this shot , you can see why I took the time to lay out the plastic on the floor .

Mess .

Clean .

What a day .

Welcome back , everybody .

I've already gone ahead and rear the floors because we are about to make another mess today .

The ceilings look awesome and you can totally leave them like this .

You can spot check them with a little bit of joint compound and then sand them , prime them and paint them .

But that is not what we're doing in today's video today .

I'm gonna show you how to skim coat a ceiling .

I started by mixing up some of this 90 minute joint compound to a little bit more of a watery consistency than if I was just taping and mudding .

I'll be rolling this on with a paint roller and then smoothing it out with my drywall knife .

This inch and a quarter nap roller is what I'm gonna be using to apply the joint compound onto the ceiling .

I want to make sure and get a really thick coat here as much as I can .

That way , my first skim coat will be as thick as possible .

The wider drywall knife that you have , the better that way you have a large flat reference surface and you don't squish into the mud as easily .

And this is a point in the project where I should remind you all that I am a diy or like you all .

I am not a drywall expert , but I have learned a lot in this process .

So I wanna share it with you all .

I made sure I started with my knife behind the new joint compound with each pass .

That way , it helped feather and smooth everything out without creating divis .

And if you create any gouges or streaks in the wet compound , like in this shot , don't worry , we're gonna come back and fix that on the second coat .

In my experience , this 90 minute joint compound worked nice .

Even though it did start drying on my tools a little bit .

I think it would work really well for a small project like a bathroom ceiling or a single wall .

But I did switch halfway through to premixed all purpose joint compound that you need to let cure overnight .

I mixed it to the same consistency and applied it the exact same way .

The key for this first coat is to be patient and do not strive for perfection to help prevent low spots .

I made sure I overlapped my drywall knife about a third with what I had already made flat with each pass .

Oh , and I also scraped my blade clean each time .

If I have any small high points , I'm gonna sand those down .

And if I've got any low spots , we'll fill those in on the next step .

So remember , don't be perfect .

We're going for gradual improvement here in this shot .

I'm smoothing out the transition where the old wall used to be dividing the kitchen and the dining living room in the Joshua tree cabin renovation .

And in this shot , I am finally applying the last portion of this first skim coat , working around the cabinets that I just painted wasn't very difficult , but I was very careful to mask them off .

Ok .

We're done .

And at this point , you could totally use sandpaper or a sanding net on a pole sander to manually smooth everything out .

You just want to take down the high points , not worrying about any divis , but that would be a whole lot of work .

And that is why I picked up this drywall sander off of Amazon .

It's apparently got built in dust collection which even if it's not perfect , is better than nothing .

And this really large sanding pad that's really soft .

This new tool cost about 100 bucks , but it was well worth it .

At first , it took me a second to find the best way of controlling it .

And I found that a step stool was helpful , but after some time I got the hang of it and I was able to keep it really flat on the ceiling .

It was definitely an arm and shoulder workout , but so much easier than using a hand pull sander and make sure you use a high grit , sandpaper like 2 20 grits .

So you don't dig in .

And as you can tell here , I was a little touchy with the trigger in the kitchen where the ceiling already had texture because I wasn't able to build as thick of a skim coat .

So I didn't want to dig in .

After I sanded in tight around the corners , I used the broom to dust off my ceilings and I could prepare for my second skim coat .

And as you can see , I did not get much dust out of this dust bag with the second coat .

We don't want to build a lot of thickness .

We just want to fill in any voids that we've created now that it's flat .

I'm basically squee this smooth .

I don't want to hang too long on this step because it's a lot like the first skim coat just like before we're going for gradual improvement and not perfection .

Although after this joint compound dried , I came back spot checking to fill every scratch and void that I could find on the ceiling before our final standing .

After this sponsor break real quick .

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Now , let's get back to the build .

I picked up this 240 grit sanding net and I think it's gonna work really great .

I went ahead and took the dust bag off .

I would like to see this hooked up to a shot back with a dust extractor .

I'm gonna grab one next time .

I'm at the store , skin coating walls coming soon .

This time around .

I made sure that the speed on my sander was set pretty low and I did not use much upward pressure .

My primary focus every time I sanded was to make sure to keep the sanding pad flat .

And I was fortunate that this day I had a good breeze and I was able to open the house up and let all the dust fly and here you can see how great the sander works .

You don't have to move quick or be aggressive at all .

This time .

I cleaned up the corners with a 220 grit sanding sponge .

A random orbit sander would be way too aggressive here .

And then I took down all of my tarps and man , I got to say I was very thankful I did all of this prep work and we are done real quick .

Let's go back to before we scraped these popcorn ceilings .

Man , they needed to go and now let's check out these actors and there you have it one super smooth ceiling .

I hope you learned something from this project .

I know I learned a lot and I am really happy with the results .

Of course , I can still find a little chip or a nick cure there , but I'll wait to fix everything until my walls are skim coated too .

Feeling so great , but I am not stopping there .

My next project is to skim code the wall .

So if you want to learn how to skim code over texture , watch that video link will be in the description as always , make sure and like comment and subscribe with that notification bell down below and we'll see you next time on modern builds .

Bye .