What does it look like now?

Here you go:

Cover it with gypsum board, tape, mud, sand, and paint.

What do you want it to look like? Smooth, or are you adding back a texture.

It looks like some sanding and a bit of skim coat will clean it up.

What Mark said is another option.

Skim coat by a pro. Or else you’re just going to have to retexture it. Because that’s about 2 full days of pro work from getting to paint if you want smooth.

I just want it to look smooth white. I guess I will try the skim coat. It sounds a lot easier than going the gypsum board route.

needs a skim coat.

I have experience in skim coating (long story) . . . that is why I suggested gypsum board. Leave skim coating to the professional. There may be a good reason why your ceiling was popcorned in the first place.

My house had sand finish plaster texture on the main floor and my husband wanted smooth finish. We had the living room and dining room walls skimmed but added drywall to the ceilings. Skim coating is a lot of labor $$ so we didn't continue past the main space.

One advantage to new drywall is you can easily add more lights. My house only had two recessed lights by the fireplace and we added an overhead and three recessed lights at the other end then covered up the work with new drywall. We avoided taping the perimeter with crown molding in the living room and dining room. We would have added crown anyway but it was a nice bonus to avoid taping the wall edge.

While it may be cheaper to skim coat it, it's WAY more labor intensive. Especially if it's your first time. But if you're patient and realize that you may have to sand and reapply many times in order to get a reasonable result (and maybe even give up after a while and go the gypsum route), then go ahead and try. It won't hurt anything.

With the 'shelter in place' order, maybe we all need to take on projects that keep us in our homes and take forever. Better than twiddling your thumbs! :)

I have done exactly what you are describing. You don't need setting drywall mud or super wide knives to skim coat. Drywall compound in a bucket and a 12" knife is fine. I see some high spots in your pics you may want to sand first. With a little practice you can minimize sanding after you've applied, which is the worst part.

We scraped ourselves, hired a drywaller to skim and sand, and painted ourselves.

For those who are reading this post and thinking about scraping their own popcorn ceilings, make sure to test for asbestos first: Popcorn Ceiling Removal

I freely admit that I'm speaking out of complete ignorance here, so feel free to shoot me down. However, for years I've wondered if a mess like that could be covered with a thick, gunky coat of smooth texture compound, brushed as smooth as possible, and then sanded after it's dry.

Would the result be too uneven? More work than it's worth? Just wouldn't work?

The issue with bucket mud is that it’s not blue board on that ceiling. A lot of wet heavy bucket mud layers over the whole thing soaks through the paper and creates issues. It can fall off down the road, right into Aunt Ethel’s soup. I’ve seen that happen when someone slammed a door. No, it wasn’t loose plaster. Chemically curing mud hardens with far less water penetration into the paper layer.

An experienced person can do this with a 12” knife. That ceiling is not one owned by a person of experience. Unless they get wider knives, they’ll just end up with more divots.

It looks like you didnt get all the popcorn off. Did you use a spray water and big spatula.
Thats how I did it and it came off to bare drywall. Needed to fix a couple spots, then primed with drywall primer and flat ceiling paint. I did all ceilings in a two story townhouse by myself, husband went to the gym....

We did our entire house ourselves as well. You will have to finish scraping those areas or sand them smooth and then mud any dents/dings/taped areas. Then paint.

If you're not a pro, you're not going to get a level 5 finish, which is what you are wanting. Drywall, tape, mud, sand. Get a pro to do it. You won't be sorry. At all.

What has been said^. The old popcorn texture hasn't been cleaned off enough to skim.

When I removed popcorn, I used hot water in a garden sprayer w/ some dish soap added. Sprayed, let it sit a bit and then peeled the texture off with a wide blade drywall knife.

Then I did a skip trowel texture.

If you want to try skimcoating it yourself, I would buy a drywall squeegee.

I haven't used this tool but did use a plain old window squeegee on a problem area of drywall. Worked good enough for me to make a note to buy the drywall version the next time I have a need. (I suck at knife work; the squeegee felt much more 'natural' to me.)

If you're concerned about water absorption that Live Wire mentioned. you can prime the drywall w/ primer or paint with a flat paint before skimcoating. Flat paint only because it's toothier. Don't use gloss, semi-gloss, etc.

Kudzu9, it's a modular home purchased in 1995. That is why I didn't check for asbestos.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I haven't decided which way to go yet but I have time since everything is on lock down.

jimmy-

Glad to hear that you’re knowledgeable about this issue. I posted mainly because it wasn’t clear, and a lot of people may look at this thread in the future, who are not as informed, and might make a poor decision. Thanks for clarifying.

I haven't decided which way to go yet but I have time since everything is on lock down.

Not to encourage anyone to break shelter--but, if you have an emergency situation that has to be dealt with (like broken plumbing), the home improvement stores (least ways, those in Wisconsin) are considered essential & remain open. I read that Home Depot is closing stores at 6 pm daily, company wide, just so you know that the hours of operation may have changed.