hello all! this is probably a little off-brand for this blog but i've spent the last fortnight+ renovating my shitty australian apartment and i thought it could be helpful to other people who would like to remove their stupid acoustic ceiling in their 70's era domicile. first up, a super brief intro to popcorn ceiling: this stuff was big in the late 20th century, mostly because it allowed construction companies to half-ass their ceiling surface and cover it up after the fact. if you're in the same approximate age range as i am and you're lucky enough to own a place then it's not unrealistic that it would have this. there are two hidden issues with popcorn ceiling if you're living in australia:

1. it might have asbestos

a lot of stuff that i have read has actually assured me that this practice was pretty rare in australia and was more of an american trend, but you should be sure anyway. i went via hazsure - their procedure is super simple, the test only costs a hundred bucks, and they appear to complete it the day that they receive the sample. i was really happy with these guys

2. there are two kinds of popcorn ceiling

while researching the job, i ended up watching this video by diy duke that made it look really straightforward and quick, but i didn't realise that i'd been swindled by the fact that newer popcorn ceilings are a mixture of cement render and styrofoam, while older ceilings are cement render and vermiculite. the latter comes off really easy when wet, but the former is basically soft concrete. knowing which one you have is key to how i would recommend you complete this task

this is what this cursed stuff actually looks like, if you're unfamiliar

so how do i actually remove the ceiling?

honestly, you probably shouldn't! i didnt realise until halfway into the first day that my ceiling was vastly different to the ones i'd seen online, and that this project would be much more trouble than i signed up for. hiring someone to do popcorn removal is fucking expensive (about 7000aud for our 50sqm apartment), but doing it yourself is also really hard if you have vermiculite instead of styrofoam - the removal took me six days, two of which were assisted by my dad, and plastering A. took another four days and B. doesn't really look that good

if you're stuck with the stuff, the move i would probably recommend would be to spray paint it white - you'll level out the texture a little, bugs will be less likely to hide in it, and you'll have an actual white ceiling, just like the hoi paloi. the moral dilemma you will have to come to terms with is that this will probably make the ceiling completely impossible to remove for yourself or someone in the future - if that's a weight that your soul can bear, then you should go for it. a 1.5 bedroom apartment will probably take you about a day to spray paint and then you can comfortably forget about it and get on with your life

i'm not chicken / i'm morbidly curious about what you did

if you decide to ignore my warnings and follow down this dark path, i have a couple more pieces of info to impart:

1. scrape the whole thing, not just the top layer

if you have a crack with a tool like a plaster scraper, you'll find that you just knock off the top half of the popcorn, which is the actual popcorny bit - this seems easier, and looks like it gives you an easier surface to work with, but don't be fooled - this will make your life waaaay harder when you need to run a plaster coat. render / plaster will dry super quick if the surface you apply it to is porous, and popcorn ceiling is super porous. it sucks way more to begin with, but it's easier to work with in the future

2. get it seriously wet before scraping

i mean it, by the end i was spraying it with a garden hose to soften it up. the difference is pliability is night and day when the popcorn is saturated all the way through, and i probably could have saved a day or two of scraping if i was doing this from the beginning

3. i mean it, don't do this shit

we scraped the ceiling with a floor scraper that we turned into a makeshift dark souls boss weapon with an angle grinder - this shit weighs probable five or six kilos and swinging it over your head for ten hours absolutely destroys your body. additionally, if anyone else has had the bright idea to try and fix the ceiling before you then you now have either paint, render or cement over the top of it - this will transform the already hard popcorn into a composite of near-mythical strength that will need to be individually chiseled away

the best part is that you now probably have a lumpy concrete ceiling with big stupid gaps in it, which now require plastering to make a surface that you can bear to look at

wait don't people get paid like actual money to plaster things

i don't have loads of good photos of the plastering process, but it sucks pretty hard. you need to roll it on with a paint roller, and the paint rollers will only last 6-8 hours before they completely clog up and die. it will get on anything that you love that you havent sent yourself crazy bagging up with painter's plastic, as well as your ladder / scaffold and the floor. you'll need to clean it while it's still wet, or scrape it off with a concrete scraper the next day once it's dried. you will eventually get the hang of it, but by then you've probably done two thirds of the rooms and they now look hideous.

yes i am scarred by this experience.

if you have to do painting (and you probably should, since your furniture is already elsewhere) get your friends in on a working bee - we managed to paint the whole place in about twelve working hours over two days. it's also a great way to snag some photos of your friends with paint in your hair

additionally, if you want to replace the floor (and your probably should, since your furniture is already elsewhere) places like carpet court will supply and install for surprisingly little money. we had timber laminate and carpet put in for just under 4000aud, and with extremely little trouble

i mean it, just spray paint the ceiling