Popcorn is for Eating

When you think of popcorn the first thing that comes to mind is probably movie popcorn, maybe caramel popcorn, popcorn balls, maybe even popcorn garlands on your tree at Christmas time.

You probably aren't thinking about the popcorn that lives on ceilings constructed in the 70's and 80's. Unfortunately we had that kind of popcorn. It was on the bedroom ceilings upstairs and on the basement ceiling. The bedrooms were scraped, mudded, textured, and painted in one evening through an amazing service project done by some very wonderful people from church just before Aaron and Owen came to us. (That is a whole other post on it's own.) But the basement remained until recently.


After 30 years of living on the ceiling, the popcorn needed to come down. How do you clean it? If there's some sort of explosion or spatter what do you do? You can't clean it. And the spiders LOVE it. It's nasty ugly stuff sprayed up there by lazy construction workers that didn't want to spend the time doing it the right way.

Mike did all the scraping. Some smart people spray painted it at some point, so it was really hard to scrape off. He was a little upset about that. (understatement) We both mudded and sanded. Then the wonderful Trevor Bean came and textured it for us for $40. It didn't take him long and he did a great job. And last, I painted. I knocked it all out in one long day. I started at 6 am and painted every chance I got until 2 am the next morning. Primed the ceiling, 2 coats on the ceiling, and 2 coats on the walls.

My tools of choice:

The paintmate is really the greatest invention ever. It's about $25 at your hardware store. You suck the paint up into the handle and then pump it out through the roller as you go. No more dipping into the paint tray. No more mess! It's super fast and great for ceilings. I will never paint a room again with out it.

The angled brush is great for all the corners and edges. I never tape. I use this brush and an oops rag. Again, a huge time saver. With a steady hand and practice you can get the job done well with much less hassle.

Whala! Here's the finished basement. This is the kid zone, everything they need all in one room. There is nothing Mike or I want or value down here. The clean fresh walls seems to lure them down more often and brighten their time together. Yahoo! Another project done!