LESLIE: Carrie in Wisconsin needs some help with a popcorn ceiling. Tell us about the project.
CARRIE: Well, I’m trying to redo my house and I used a spray bottle with water in it to get the ceiling soft and that worked out really well to take it off and not have a lot of dust around. But then when I went to put the paint up, there was still some left up there and that peeled off as I was rolling the paint on the ceiling.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: Yeah. OK.
CARRIE: So what is the best way to do that?
TOM: Well, I mean obviously you didn’t get it all off there. Now where are we right now? Do you have a painted ceiling that’s got a little bit of popcorn still stuck on it?
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Got weird texture?
CARRIE: Yes, yes.
TOM: Hmm. Well, what I would tell you to do is to go back at it and try to get the rest of that off if you really want to get rid of all that popcorn. And then once you’re sure you’ve got it all off, the thing I would apply is primer, not ceiling paint.
CARRIE: OK.
TOM: Because that’s going to seal in the surface to give it a good, firm coat for the new paint to adhere to and that will bind anything that’s sort of left behind. And then you want to use flat paint. Don’t use anything with a sheen because even though you’ve got most of that popcorn off, there’s still going to be some unevenness left behind and if you use anything that’s got a sheen, it’s going to look really bad.
So those are the steps. You’re going to have to go back and get everything that you missed. There’s no short way around that. And then prime it and then repaint it with flat paint.
CARRIE: OK. Alright, thank you.
TOM: Alright, Carrie. Glad we helped you out. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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