Since this is a new build, I would say worth it although I have no personal experience with the cost to say whether that is high or not. My parents paid about $3500 to remove it from an older home. It's a dated thing that most people want to get rid of so it would seem a shame to build a new home with something that's already outdated and not very attractive.

There are different gradations of smoothness. You don't need the most expensive, but definitely go with some version of a smooth ceiling. Popcorn and textured ceilings are a nightmare.

My son (a contractor) says to always get three quotes. It's quite surprising what they will turn up. Drywall work is about speed and skill, I think, and some guys work faster than others, so prices can vary. Some price by the board, some by the hour, some by the job, based on the intricacy of the cuts, turns, extra finishing needed, etc. For your job, at that price, I would keep looking, to assure myself the price is fair, then you will feel a lot better about making the decision. How many square feet are you talking about?

what are they doing that it will cost 6000?
are the ceilings exceptionally high?

As someone who has textured ceilings I would get them smooth. I can't stand mine!

My home is around 2,700 square feet with 9ft ceilings throughout and out family room is 12ft with vaulted ceilings.

We are building through a builder so we can't really get quotes elsewhere. I suppose we could ask for quotes for getting it removed after the fact....

Smoothing out the ceilings will transform the feel of the house, so you should try to get it done if at all possible. Not sure how they are planning on achieving this, but there are a few ways to do it - scrape the ceilings and skim coat, or cover the whole thing over with 1/4" drywall. The drywall technique is usually cheaper, if feasible.

I would stay away from the popcorn! Builders like to do it because it's easy to do and it hides a lot of blemishes. Another problem homeowners don't think about is that someday down the road you may want to paint the ceiling. Either a new color or a refresher of ceiling white and painting popcorn can be a nightmare too. I'm not sure what the sq footage of your ceilings are, but if it's say 2700 sq ft divided by $6000, that's about $2.22 a sq ft. That's less than the cost of flooring in some cases. Sometimes looking at the smaller cost helps too.

Tell the builder you don't want to pay that huge of a mark up and negotiate it down. I recently built a home about 3000 sq ft for a client and the drywall bill with a lite texture (old world) for the entire house was only 13k so an up charge just for ceilings of 6k sounds high... Like he doubled it.

Oh... oops, just saw this is a new house. Smooth ceilings would be much preferred. It would be great to get the cost down if at all possible, but in the end the money invested should come back to you in the overall feel of the quality of the house when it is finished.

What is the comparison for textured ceilings to smooth if this is a new build?

I hate the look of popcorn too, but keep in mind that it is also a terrific sound dampener. If you have uncarpeted rooms, the popcorn really helps keep the rooms from being echo-y and cuts down on how much background noise bounces around in and between the rooms; that background noise can be tiring and make it hard to communicate between rooms. Imagine a cafeteria vs a carpeted restaurant - the softer materials help dampen the inevitable background noise.

I'm not quite sure how the builder priced it out but of course they have to pay the trades and make a bit of a profit themselves which would explain the price.

If the builder is doing an good job at finishing the project I would say pay him. You can get all the quotes you want to but it always boils down to time. You will get what you pay for.

So after discussing it with my husband, we are going to bite the bullet and get the flat ceilings. I can't wait!

Since you are doing the flat you might consider a dining room ceiling like one of these.

Ooh that's very cool. What was applied to give the glossy look?

Very cool, I'll have to look into that!

Hi Belle Chaise, as per my initial post it's a new build so I won't be removing the popcorn nor do I have to worry about asbestos. :-)

If I am understanding your situation correctly, and the ceilings have not been completed at this stage of your project, then you should know that with a popcorn ceiling, the builder must finish the ceiling with at least one decently sanded coat of drywall mud so that the seams and screw depressions cannot be seen after the popcorn is applied. That means that you are only two mud coats shy of a flat ceiling if the pocorn was not applied at this one coat stage. If the popcorn was not aplied, the second coat of drywall mud would be applied instead. This probably takes as long (or probably less time) than the application of the popcorn ( the walls and floor have to be masked so popcorn doesn't cover everything during spraying). This means that the the $6,000 that your builder is charging you is basically for some skilled drywall finishers to apply and sand only one coat of drywall mud. I don't know what the total square area is, but it would be very easy to call a drywall finisher and ask what this finishing coat would cost.

If all they plan on doing is apply only one more coat of drywall mud, then it will look awful. I hope they have more sense than that.

If the ceiling are a level four or five the price is very reasonable.

The quickest way to date your home is a pop corn ceiling. It's a great dust collector too. The reason builders apply popcorn to ceilings is because it hides the workmanships imperfections in the sheet rock - seams and other problems.

My husband and I were going back and forth but we walked through a model home yesterday with flat ceilings and wow, it makes such a difference! Definitely not regretting our decision to go with flat ceilings throughout the house now.

Prices certainly vary by location... A couple years ago we had an 1800 sq ft house drywalled and the total bill wasn't much over $7K for material and labor for what was probably level 4 finish. It was a gambrel roof with 9 foot ceilings and lots of angles too.

Sounds high to me if that is just the upcharge but definitely flat ceilings are the way to go

It makes an incredible mess when you have it removed. Better now than when you are in the house with your furnishings.

Never do popcorn if this is new construction. You should get several bids.. Maybe 4 or 5. But popcorn is so 70's!! Level 4 or 5 smooth wall is great.

So we met with the design center yesterday and they told us that we would basically have to sign a waiver if we decided to proceed with the flat ceilings. This waiver would basically say that we agree that the ceilings won't be perfect and forfeit our right to complain and get imperfections fixed through the builder (PDI, 30 day report, etc). UHHH no thanks, if I'm paying 6k I expect my ceilings to be close to perfect and to have any issues addressed!

I did not read all the suggestions but we had popcorn ceiling in our small dining area. Our home was built in 1935 and we have plaster walls instead of tearing out the walls we smoothed everything out by dry-walling right on top of the plaster walls and the popcorn ceiling. Its a lot of work but we saved a lot of money by doing it ourselves.

I think you're on the right track turning down this "generous offer" to get "probably" flat ceiling for 6 grand. When you get the house finished, you can revisit the idea, if you still have the $6,000 available.

Thanks Linda, we'll probably go with a 4" smooth border mainly to help with touch ups while painting. I can definitely think of a few other upgrades my "saved" $6,000 can go towards instead!

Totally a love-hate. My wife hates textured ceilings and I could care less. guess what we have in our home???

uhm. a waiver that you can't complain if the ceilings aren't actually flat?
what the hell? >:[

I do not like your predicament! IMO, they are protecting shoddy workmanship. Yikes!