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We went into the weekend with a very simple home improvement project for Saturday morning in mind. We soon learned Lesson of Homeownership #1: Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.
We planned to spend 4 hours and less than $40 to paint the ceiling in our upstairs bathroom. The task seemed easy enough for two people who have painted nearly every room in their home. Not so. When we started to paint the ceiling which had popcorn on it like several other previously painted ceilings in the house, the popcorn decided to start falling off.
Without many other options in sight we began to scrape the popcorn from the ceiling into a pile on the floor. At this point we felt that we were taking a different direction but were still in control, it would just be a little bit messier than planned.
It was after we had finished scraping a 3×3 ft. square that we realized that is project would also be an investigation of home improvement projects past. That 3×3 ft. square was the only spot on the whole ceiling where the popcorn texture came completely off. The rest became only popcorn without peaks. The texture was still there, it wasn’t going anywhere and there was a definite line where the bathroom had been remodeled and the texture that was easily removed had been added to match.
After three phone calls to my dad and three trips Big G we began sanding.
It’s Monday … the ceiling has been thoroughly sanded, I can’t move my arms, there is a thick layer of dust on every surface in the house. Our 4 hour $40 project has turned in to a 4 day $200 project involving a whole lot of house cleaning.
Nothing is ever as easy as it seems …but we are thankful to the helpful people at Big G who did not laugh every time we showed up covered in dust with a different set of questions.
Tags: 20-somethings, home ownership, home project
About the author: Kaleena & Matt Fong
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Mike and I measure the success of a home improvement project by the number of trips to the hardware store. Does more trips mean more success? Probably not! Good luck with your bathroom.
Oh no! I wish we had talked about this prior to your adventure with the ceiling. We might have had some tips — like scheduling a massage post popcorn scraping.
Easy solution: make more money, hire more laborers, keep your hands clean.
A tip for the future of ceiling finishing, a cheap spray bottle or bucket and sponge, some water and a 6 inch drywall knife the stuff comes right off (most of the time). It’s at least a lot less work and you’ll have arms left at the end of the day, however you may not get the Popeye like results the following week.