Hi, I'm remodeling a heated basement and I'd like to install insulation in the ceiling for sound control purposes. I've heard somewhere that you can install R-11 and that you should make cuts in the paper face. When installing insulation this way, does it matter if the paper side is down? Also, is using unfaced insulation better? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks, Marty

So, my wife leaves town for a few weeks and I get the crazy notion to scrape the horrible popcorn texture from the living room ceiling as a surprise. A few minutes of internet research assured me that most of the work is in the prep time and that the popcorn, once sprayed down with some water, comes off like oatmeal. I cover every inch of floor and wall with plastic, spray a section, wait, and scrape......whoa! it's a lot harder than I expected. Figuring I just don't have the technique or amount of water worked out, I simply continue. Hours later it occurs to me that something is wrong. By midnight I have scraped the entire ceiling, but only the nubbins have come off. The surface is still covered with a nasty looking scale. In the morning it looks worse, so I start again. This time around I am able to get down to untextured dywall in a few places. At first I think it is, again, technique (by the way, I am using a 4 inch heavy duty wall scraper and replacing the razor blades like they are going out of style) but when I move on to other areas, I convince myself that I am simply scraping in places where the crud is not as well bonded to the drywall. And in the process of this scraping, I am tearing up little pieces of drywall paper. By 10pm of the second day, I am losing control of the situation, if not my mind. Next morning I check out my trusty drywall book by Myron Ferguson. Excellent book, by the way. Myron talks about using a skim coat to even out areas of different texture. But he says that the method is rarely employed because of how time consuming it is. Myron, brother, you don't know. So, I start skim coating. First, his method of applying thinned down compound with a roller doesn't work. I end up using a 12" trowel and regular compound. Slow, yes, but at least I can see progress minute by minute. At this point, the ceiling has been completely mudded and sanded and it looks great. But for 300 sq ft it took me 3.5 days and my shoulders are wrecked. Bottom line is that my popcorn had been painted and that prevented the water from soaking in evenly. Scraping dry popcorn was pretty much the same as scraping wet popcorn. In a second (longer) round of internet research I found one other post that cautions people about working on painted popcorn, so wanted to post another. Don't even attempt it. For the other rooms in the house with popcorn I will be installing new drywall over the crud. Incidentally, if you have not purchased a good cartridge style dust mask, do it now. They are sweet. I can't believe I went so long without one. Hope somebody finds this useful. Friends don't let friends texture with popcorn... Or build fireplaces.... Or build with T-111