Popcorn! It's not just for movies anymore!

Popcorn ceilings, acoustic ceilings, stucco ceilings...they've been called lots of things but I just call them outdated and ugly! From the moment I stepped foot in the house I knew the ceilings were going to have to come down, it wasn't going to be fun but it was going to be worth it! Luckily, the hubby supports all of my crazy ideas and we began researching how to get rid of the ceilings! The general consensus from previous DIY-ers was that removing the ceilings didn't require any real skill (thank the Lord, because I lack most all home improvement skills) just time and effort.

See what I mean? Not pretty!

After a quick trip to Home Depot we were equipped with the necessary supplies to take down the ceilings: two pairs of goggles, two spray bottles, two scrapers, and one tarp!

The method was really easy, saturate the ceiling with water then scrape off the stucco. The ceilings in the back of the house took FOR-EVER, within two minutes of scraping I was ready to call it quits. Luckily, the tenacious hubby was able to power through and he made some amazing progress within an hour so I was feeling more optimistic about our DIY ceiling removal!

Look at him go!

Despite my minor meltdown in the beginning, I helped, too! (And how awesome are my glasses?)

 Much to our surprise the ceilings in the front of the house came down so easily since they had never been painted! Our all weekend project only ended up taking one day and ironically, removing the flooring which we didn't plan on spending so much time on, ended up being a major undertaking that would have taken even longer if it weren't for my parents and brother's help! Matthew and I owe them SO much, there is no way we would have survived the move and renovations if it weren't for my parents!

 In all honesty, we shouldn't be referring to ourselves as ceiling removal-DIYers since we really only scraped them smooth which you can see above. Our painter did the dirty work of coating the ceilings with mud, then sanding the mud smooth then painting them!

Here's what they look like half scraped and half covered in mud:

And now, the final product! Bye, bye stucco/popcorn/whatever-you-call-it ceiling!

 

Isn't it beautiful? I'm so happy I decided to get rid of those outdated ceilings! Oh, and notice the blue color on the walls? Here's a sneak peak of the painting process! I ended up not painting the entire downstairs Dune Grass, I decided to paint the front of the house Benjamin Moore's Smoke while still keeping Benjamin Moore's Dune Grass for the back of the house! This Benjamin Moore guy sure does make some fabulous colors!

That's all the progress we have for now but we're so happy you stopped by to check it out!