Hello. New here and hoping to learn and eventually contribute.

We recently removed painted popcorn from the ceiling in one of our bedrooms. We tested for asbestos and lead and both came back negative.

Because it was previously painted, removal was a bit harder and more work than we had expected. Eventually, we got most of it removed. Now we are left with bits and patches where the paint the popcorn/paint is really stuck to the drywall. I'm guessing that those areas, the original popcorn was very thing so that the paint might be sticking to the drywall. They are all over the place. Not just a piece here and there. Really hard to scrape off and won't really take on any water.

I did some research and found these to be potential solutions to removing the last remnants of the popcorn and paint. Any thoughts or suggestions would be very appreciated.

1) Sand down the remaining pieces. Seems like it would be very time consuming. There are little patches all over. Dusty but can use a vac while sanding.

2) Heat gun. Similar time consuming but less mess.

3) Paint remover but I read that this is not recommended since we only have small patches and pieces. Might damage the drywall.

4) Just skim coat over and not bother with removing the pieces assuming that they are sanded down roughly flush.

Love to hear some thoughts form folks that might know about this or have experienced this issue before.

 

Welcome to the forums.

My first thought is to sand (maybe with a drywall pole sander) and then skim coat.

 

Whenever you remove popcorn you need to skim coat and sand ..... and occasionally sand first.

Do not use paint remover! have no idea how a heat gun would do.

 

Thanks for the quick responses!

In what case would you suggest sanding first before doing skim coat? Also, skim coat over entire drywall or just the portions with the stuck on paint?

 

Sanding first would be necessary if there were any loose edges and such. It doesn't sound like this may be the case for you so skim coating might be the place to start. I would be considering skim coating the whole ceiling.

 

I'll do a quick sand first with a sanding pole IF I think doing so will remove more of the old texture. Life is too short to spend any amount of time sanding it when a skim coat will cover it ..... and the fresh joint compound will be easier to sand.

 

Got it. I'll try sanding the rough textured areas but mainly rely on skim coat.

Thanks for the help marksr and stickshift!