I have the apartment in 15 floor building 1975 year build. It has pop corn. I hate it and want to remove. Main problem is that texture was applied on the concrete slab (no drywall). Builder used plywood to form the slab and was not accurate enough (plywood prints on the slab have height drops up to 1 inch and filled with pop corn like substance).
Talking with my neighbors who removed popcorn I found out:
a. This is really hard work (if You do it yourself) or expensive (if hire somebody)
b. It messy work and best way is to remove all furniture from the rooms
c. The regular wet/dry pop corn scrapping with regular skin-coat plastering is not enough to hide height drops.
d. may be I'm crazy but I could not find really perfect result (Every time I could find couple places with not perfect flat surface . Be sure I did not used microscope to find them) Windows in our building go up to the ceiling, and flat light parallel to the ceiling shows all level irregulars.

They gave me two ideas:
- To install drywall (It is require to install framing and drop the ceiling about 2 1/2"). This is well known way
- To install stretch ceiling.

Contractor who suggested the last way was very talkative about stretch ceiling advantages. Pictures he show me were very nice but...

Did somebody have stretch ceiling in Your house and what do you think about this? Or may by somebody could suggest another way to eliminate my pop corn?
Thank You