Randy’s Painting & Drywall

Easton, Northampton County

Popcorn ceiling removal in Easton, PA.

Most ceilings in the city of Easton are plaster from before 1940. Sprayed popcorn texture belongs mainly to its postwar houses and to the 1960s and 1970s homes of Palmer Township.

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A ceiling and walls patched in white compound, a work table of tools in the middle of the room.
Ceiling and walls, patched mid-job.

Popcorn ceiling removal for Easton homes

Sprayed acoustic texture belongs to houses built from the 1950s into the 1980s, which makes it the exception inside the city. Close to two in three of its homes went up before 1940, when ceilings were plastered, and only about one in five dates from 1940 through 1979.

A popcorn ceiling in a house from before 1940 was added later, over the original plaster or over a ceiling that had already been replaced. Either way it may be old enough to matter, so a lab looks at a sample before anyone scrapes, and if asbestos turns up, the removal becomes work for a certified asbestos abatement contractor. With a clear result, the texture comes off and the ceiling is repaired, skimmed, primed and painted.

Easton

Old plaster in the city, postwar ceilings in Palmer

Downtown was built mostly between 1830 and 1910, College Hill between the 1830s and 1940, and nearly seven in ten West Ward homes predate 1940. Their ceilings were plaster on lath, and a century of settling shows in them as cracks and sags. Taking a later spray coat off one of them can uncover cracks the texture had been covering, so plaster repair joins the job before any skim coat goes on.

The townships tell the other half of the story. More than a quarter of Palmer Township's homes date from the 1960s and 1970s, the years when spraying a ceiling was standard practice. Forks Township is mostly post-1980 construction, about half of it built since 2000, so popcorn there is less common. The boroughs at the city's edge, Wilson, West Easton and Glendon, are each more than half pre-1940, much like the city.

Two painters working a ceiling on poles and a ladder, the kitchen below sealed in clear plastic.
Ceiling work, the room sealed in plastic.

Worth knowing

  1. Old houses still get tested

    Texture sprayed onto 1890s plaster in the 1960s is just as old as the texture in a 1960s ranch. The age of the house says nothing about the age of the spray.

  2. Plaster under the scraper

    Cracked or loose sections of an old plaster ceiling can let go as the texture comes off. They are refastened or rebuilt before the ceiling is skimmed flat.

  3. Palmer's 1960s and 1970s ceilings

    Drywall meant to be textured was typically finished only to the level texture needs. Once the popcorn is off a ceiling from those decades, plan on a skim coat over all of it.

The work

How the work goes

The same care on every job, in every town. The full guide to popcorn ceiling removal.

A room with its ceiling part-way through a skim coat, a painter working beneath it among tools and buckets.
A ceiling mid skim coat.

  1. The walkthrough

    Randy looks at the ceilings with you, how they were built and how the rooms are lit, and explains what removal and refinishing will involve. You get a written estimate; like the walkthrough, it is complimentary.

  2. Test before anything else

    If the texture may date from before the mid-1980s, a sample has to be taken by an accredited asbestos professional and tested by a lab before the ceiling is touched. If it tests positive, the job belongs to a certified asbestos abatement contractor, not a painter.

  3. Containment

    The room is emptied, floors and walls are sheeted in plastic, and power to the ceiling fixtures is shut off. The texture comes down as wet, heavy debris, and it should stay inside the room it came from.

  4. Wet scraping

    The texture is misted lightly, given time to soften, and scraped off in small sections. Too much water can damage the drywall beneath it, and painted texture resists water, so it needs a slower approach.

  5. Repair and skim

    Gouges, open seams and loose tape are repaired, then the ceiling is skim-coated so it reads flat under side light. Each coat dries before it is sanded, which is where most of the time goes.

  6. Prime and paint

    The finished ceiling is primed so compound and bare paper take paint evenly. It is then painted, usually in a flat finish that keeps minor flaws overhead from catching the light.

Questions

Popcorn ceiling removal, Easton.

Why would a West Ward house from 1910 have a popcorn ceiling?

Because someone added it. Houses of that age were plastered, and sprayed acoustic texture only came into common use from the 1950s, sometimes going over plaster that had started to crack. It still needs a lab test before it is disturbed, since texture applied before the mid-1980s can contain asbestos.

Our Forks Township house was built in 2004. Does the texture still need a test?

Texture original to a house built that long after the mid-1980s falls outside the years of concern. If you are not sure when the ceiling was sprayed, for instance after an earlier owner's repair, a test removes the doubt before anything is scraped.

What if the plaster under the texture turns out to be badly cracked?

It is repaired rather than torn out in most cases. Loose areas are secured, cracks are opened and filled, and the whole ceiling is skim-coated so the old damage doesn't show through the new paint.

More in Easton

Other services here.

  1. Level 5 drywall finishA skim coat over the entire surface, for walls that hold up under raking light and dark paint.
  2. Skim coatingRough, patched or uneven walls resurfaced smooth, often after wallpaper comes down.
  3. Plaster repairCracked, loose and failing plaster in older homes, repaired and made sound.
  4. Interior paintingWalls, ceilings, trim, doors and millwork, prepared properly and finished clean.
  5. Exterior paintingSiding, trim, porches, stucco and brick, prepared to stand up to Pennsylvania weather.
  6. Drywall installation & repairNew drywall hung, taped and finished; cracks, holes and water damage repaired invisibly.
  7. Drywall texture matching & removalTexture matched so repairs disappear, applied where you want it, or taken off for a smooth wall.
  8. Wallpaper removalOld wallpaper and wall linings stripped without tearing up the wall beneath.
  9. Wood stainingDecks, porch floors, doors and trim, inside and out, stained by hand.

Consultation

Request a private consultation.

Private walkthrough & written estimate, complimentary. Tell us a little about the house and the rooms, and Randy will be in touch to arrange a time.

Hours
Monday – Friday8:30 AM – 5:30 PMSaturday10 AM – 3 PMSundayClosed
Service area
Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown and the greater Lehigh Valley; Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Fully insured — proof on request. Residential and commercial.

Randy’sPainting & DrywallReply card
The project
Preferred contact

Walkthrough & written estimate, complimentary.