1300 sq. ft. - ceiling needs smoothing

It's called texture paint. The paint is sort of thick, so when laid on with a roller it forms those little spikes. It's done to help hide imperfections in the underlying surface. You could scrape the whole layer of paint off, but god knows what's under there.

I've always called it a "popcorn ceiling". In many cases it isn't rolled on at all--it is sprayed on during construction. Some has a tendency to peel away in places. Smoothing it is not a highly specialized art--I've known many owners to have it done. But it is not cheap. And it is very messy.

kylewest, the popcorn is different. Supposedly those little globules have some kind of insulation value. Looks like something out of pathological dermatology. Texture paint, on the other hand, forms little peaks, like meringue.

Uh-oh, maybe "pointy bumps" means it's texture paint on top of popcorn. That'd be really nasty.

Yeah, thanks for the feedback, you're confirming what I've been told without really getting an expert to look at it. NWT, you are spot on in your description, it is kinda like meringue or bad skin! I just figure it's a difficult job to do the whole ceiling and it'll cost me. I'm wondering if anyone had this done because I wouldn't do it myself.

It's a horrible job. Not hard, but labor intensive. Had it scraped off a few times in different apts. I've been charged as part of a bigger job so don't know what it would cost separately. How strict is your co-op?

You could always just drop the ceiling a few inches instead of trying to wrestle with the finish. Personally, I hate dropped ceilings (and their ubiquitous high-hat lights) but many people enjoy that style.

If he has popcorn ceilings, then his ceilings are probably at 8 feet. No room to drop further.

nyc10023, I was looking at an apt and noticed these ceilings which I think are bad news and would need to be renovated. It looks like it would be a part of a bigger job too. And the ceilings are low enough as is, so yeah, you wouldn't want to drop 'em.

On the other hand, it's not that big a job in the grand scheme of renovating an apartment. It all depends on how strict your building is and if they consider this a GC-worthy job. It's tedious but in this economic climate, I'm sure you can get someone for less than $200/day to work on it for 7 hours/day. Should take one guy no more than 3 weeks. That's 3k. Consider that is what a GC probably pays their minion to do it. What you're paying for, especially in Manhattan, are the GC's overheads.