Getting rid of ceiling texture, or patching

Factual Questions
1

I am in the process of doing some painting in my daughter’s room, and have hit a problem I can’t quite figure out.

The ceiling has icky texture on it which is in some areas kind of bubbling off. Scraping those areas has yielded large patches with no texture, but other spots are extremely tough to scrape. I have tried sanding, but it takes forever, and is mostly worse than the scraping. I need to know if there is any better way to get rid of this stuff, or, I suppose a way to put it back in the areas it is gone. Does anyone know a way to solve this?

2

If you mean “popcorn” texture (looks like cottage cheese) you can buy disposable spray cans to replace it. It’s difficult to make it match exactly, though.

It gets really soft when wet (like if your roof leaks) but I’m not sure if you’d want to get it wet for removal. Might damage the sheetrock.

3

It isn’t as big as popcorn, it seems to be plaster or some such.

4

First things first – how long ago was the ceiling texture applied? If it was before 1980 you should have it tested for asbestos.

If it was after 1980, scrape away. But it’s a hell of a messy, tiring job. Get a big spray bottle and fill it with hot tap water. Spray a 2x2 foot square of the ceiling pretty thoroughly with the hot water. Let it soak a bit, then scrape. Move on to the next patch.

5

it’s likely one of two things… Popcorn or a stiffle (sometimes called slapbrush) brush. Oh, I suppose it could be a skip trowel

google textured ceiling removal and you’ll get about a zillion hits.

6

You could just put another layer of sheetrock over the popcorn.

7

Is the surface like lates/plastic or plaster?
If latex - steam and curse al lot
Note: bpth the following require watered-down “mud”/plaster:
if plaster - you can try your hand at matching - the second pic above is created by stippling the wet mud (aka "wallboard compound, taping compound, etc.) with a wet paint brush.
The third pics’s effect is created by slapping a wet trowel on the wet mud and pulling straight off/up - wait a bit for the mud to stiffen, then trowel down to knock off the peaks - or leave the peaks (on walls, this discourages fingerprints - those peaks are sharp!).

8

“Just” put another layer? :dubious:

9

Sometimes it is much easier.

You could set up a humidifier or something similar to ‘soften’ the ceiling. That will help.

10

Another thing you can do is re-spray the entire ceiling with new texture. They rent the spray-machine at Home Despot, IIRC.

11

Sometimes you have no choice.
I have a room in my house where a prior owner had used Liquid Nails to secure small acoustic tiles to the ceiling. When I ripped it all down, there were five thousand rock-hard black lumps on the ceiling. I chipped a few hundred off (over several evenings) before I decided to cut my losses and just rip the entire ceiling out.

I took advantage of the moment to run new wires for the ceiling fan and to put fresh insulation in. Then a friend and I put up a new ceiling.

It was truly worth it. The ceiling is smooth.