Looks half-assed to me. (Did they even lower the ceiling fan canopy?) And if you paid for an additional smooth finish, I don’t think you got it. This is coming from someone who’s been down this same road, only on a MUCH larger scale.

Edit: As it is, though, it looks a hell of a lot better than it used to so please don’t let this scare you off from proceeding with the rest of the house!! And in the future, I think you and the drywall contractor need to have a discussion beforehand so they understand explicitly what your expectations are. It may have been that the better course of action would’ve been to replace the drywall altogether or install new drywall right over the existing.

It looks a heck of a lot better than popcorn.

You’ve got the wrong contractor for the job.

From the photos, I can't tell, but at least it is no longer popcorn.

Thank you for all the replies. Yes, I agree it's a lot better than popcorn, but the streaks are driving me nuts! hehehe

No, he didn't do a skim coat and by the looks of the stains in the fan I don't think he lowered the fan canopy either. Two things I didn't know where necessary but now I do!

I want to do the entire house still, but I'm not sure about this contractor. He is coming tomorrow to put a 3rd coat on the wall. Yes, he also painted the wall blue, but it's still uneven after 2 coats. I'll talk to him about the ceiling and see what he says.

I've had 4 contractors come bid on this popcorn removal. Two said smooth ceiling is impossible, one wanted $680 which I thought was a little expensive for one small bedroom, and then there was this one. He charged $450.

Any tips on how to go about finding the right person for the job are appreciated, in case he is not able to fix the streaks! :)

I cant tell by your pictures, but, sometimes streaks come when you paint a ceiling because, the paint dries so fast, that it doesnt flow out nicely. I would ask for another coat on the ceiling and ask him to use floetrol in the paint (following directions on the bottle). This keeps the paint from drying too fast, so it will flow out evenly and ceiling will look a lot better than it does with all the streaks.

If you have to tell a painter how to paint you have the wrong painter. It can be hard to find competent workers for home improvement jobs but you need to see the work someone has done for someone else if you want to be satisfied with the result. A guy who specializes in drywall and plastering exclusively is the direction I would go in, not a general contractor.

I've had 4 contractors come bid on this popcorn removal. Two said smooth ceiling is impossible, one wanted $680 which I thought was a little expensive for one small bedroom, and then there was this one. He charged $450.

I would say that you got a $450 job. And that he didn't charge enough, considering he removed popcorn and applied 2 coats of paint.

Obvious that he did not remove the vent cover or lower the fan canopy and likely did very little, if any, mudding & sanding. Didn't even clean the mud off the vent cover.

If you have a single layer of drywall over 24" OC joists, then, yeh, getting a perfect ceiling is impossible. The drywall will sag a bit between the joists so you get hills and valleys. A perfect job is going to cost more, a lot more. High end ceilings have two layers of drywall, installed perpendicular to one another.

For a budget choice, I would remove popcorn, repair the worst, texture and paint.

If you want an real smooth ceiling, you’re going to be in the $1500 range for that, not $450. That means doing all the steps this guy skipped, and 100% skim coating it, with multiple touch ups. It still won’t be perfect because the house was not designed with smooth ceilings in mind. But it will be better than that.

Ask him if he has any experience in doing a level 5 finish.

He should have primed the new ceiling before painting it, and if you bought a quality one-coat paint, then one coat is all you would need.

Our bid for popcorn removal for approximately 1700 sqft in the Midwest was $15k for smooth finish without paint! It is an expensive job that no one wants to do. We did it ourselves and hired painters who also left streaks with the paint on our ceiling. I ended up sanding those areas and repainting myself. It's not perfect, but as the posters said above, it's better than the popcorn!

Thank you for all the advice. The contractor never came... I waited all day and he never showed up. He isn't returning my calls or texts either. I guess I'll just cut my loses and move on.

Thank you again everyone.

You get what you pay for.

I am late to the game, but was wondering if you had them test the popcorn ceiling for asbestos. Most homes before the 1978 had it. If your is that old and it wasn't tested, and they didn't use the proper removal protocol (and I doubt they did based on that low price as it's very expensive to remove asbestos), you released a ton of toxic, invisible particles into your home.