Popcorn Ceiling Removal Austin TX
Residential and rental ceilings scraped, repaired, retextured or skimmed dead flat. Popcorn · Cottage Cheese · Acoustic · Stucco · Painted Texture
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What Austin customers said
We had put this off for about six years honestly, partly because the house is a 1971 build and every time I looked into it I ended up reading about asbestos and closing the tab. Marisa came out, took three samples, and one of them came back different from the other two which apparently is normal if a room has been redone at some point. All negative. Then it was four days of scraping and skimming and the crew were in and out of the house with plastic on everything and I did not find dust anywhere afterwards which I genuinely expected to. 3,400 all in for the living areas and the primary, including the testing. The one thing I would say is the quote was itemised in a way I found a bit confusing at first because I was comparing it against two other quotes that were just one number, and it took a phone call to understand I was actually getting more for less.
Fast, tidy, and the ceiling looks like it was always flat. No notes.
They rescheduled on me twice, which was frustrating because I had taken a day off work for the first one. To be fair I got a call both times rather than being left waiting, and the second time they knocked something off for the trouble without me asking. The actual work was good. They sprayed a sample board and hung it in the room and I made them redo it because the first one was too heavy, and there was no argument about it at all. Ceiling matches the hallway now which is what I wanted. Would use again, would also confirm the date twice.
I had a contractor tell me my 2011 house needed asbestos testing before he would touch the ceiling. Called these guys for a second quote and the first thing on the phone was that a house that age cannot have it and I should not pay for the test. That is how I ended up hiring them. Job was two days, no drama.
Turned a rental between tenants in three days including paint. Landlord stuff, unglamorous, done right.
Popcorn ceiling removal in Austin, start to finish
Popcorn ceiling removal in Austin costs $2.30 to $4.05 per square foot, and the whole job is scrape, repair, skim, prime and paint. That is what this company does and it is all this company does, since 2014. The two questions everybody arrives with are what it costs and whether there is asbestos in it, so both are answered on this page with real numbers and real dates rather than a form you have to fill in first. If your house was sprayed before 1986, a lab sample comes before anything else.
Six things that go wrong on this job
Quotes hundreds apart
One contractor is pricing a bare scrape, another is pricing scrape, skim, prime and paint. Same words, different job.
Nobody checked for paint
Painted texture will not wet-scrape. A quote given without testing that is a change order waiting to happen.
Asbestos sold, not explained
Testing pushed on a 2004 house that cannot possibly have it, and skipped on the 1974 house that might.
The ceiling looks worse flat
Nail pops, failed tape and old patches all become visible once texture comes off. That is a repair line, not a surprise.
Dust everywhere for months
Open sanding puts fine gypsum on top of your kitchen cabinets. Extraction and a sealed room stop that.
The crew disappears mid-job
Started, stripped, then gone for a fortnight while the room sits under plastic and nobody answers the phone.
Three reasons Austin homeowners keep our ceiling crew
We only do ceilings
Since 2014 this has been one trade rather than a menu. Tavo has scraped more Austin ceilings than most remodellers will see in a career, and it shows in how fast the awkward parts go.
The quote separates scrape from repair
You can see what the texture removal costs, what the repairs cost and what the finish costs. If your ceiling turns out to be in good shape, the repair line goes down rather than quietly staying put.
We say no to work
We turn down flat ceilings on houses with visible joist movement, we tell Buda customers they do not need asbestos testing, and we hand positive samples to licensed abatement contractors instead of finding a way around it.
Who you are calling
Popcorn Ceiling Removal Austin TX is a small, Austin-based crew that takes textured ceilings off houses, rentals and small apartment buildings across Travis, Williamson and Hays counties. Services include asbestos testing before removal, painted popcorn ceiling removal, dustless removal in occupied houses, knockdown and orange peel retexturing, level 5 smooth ceiling skim coating, ceiling drywall and water stain repair, ceiling priming and painting, drywall overlay over popcorn, popcorn wall texture removal, apartment and rental ceiling removal, acoustic and stucco and cottage cheese ceiling removal, and pre-listing ceiling work for sellers and agents. Founded in 2014 and still four people and two vans, one of which is the white Transit with the dented rear bumper and the two scaffold towers on the roof rack.
Service areas include Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Georgetown, Leander, San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, Hutto, Manor, Lakeway, Wells Branch, Bee Cave, Dripping Springs, Liberty Hill, Elgin and Bastrop. If your town is not on the list, call and ask, because the answer is usually yes.
Every ceiling service we offer in Austin
Asbestos Testing Before Removal
Ceiling sprayed before 1986? A lab sample settles it in a few days and costs a fraction of guessing wrong.
Painted Popcorn Ceiling Removal
Sprayed a patch with water and nothing softened? It has been painted, and that is a different job with a different price.
Dustless Popcorn Ceiling Removal
Living in the house while it happens? Sealed rooms, HEPA extraction and a zip door mean the kitchen stays usable.
Knockdown and Orange Peel Retexturing
Want the ceiling to match the rest of the street? Knockdown hides substrate movement in a way a flat ceiling never will.
Level 5 Smooth Ceiling Skim Coat
Big windows and a flat ceiling? Raking light finds everything, so this one is a full level 5 skim or nothing.
Ceiling Drywall and Water Stain Repair
Brown rings on the ceiling mean the paper got wet, and wet paper tears under a scraper. Fix first, scrape second.
Ceiling Priming and Painting
Fresh compound drinks paint unevenly. Primer is not an upsell here, it is what stops the ceiling looking patchy.
Drywall Overlay Over Popcorn
Ceiling painted three times and cracked underneath? Screwing new board over the top can genuinely be the cheaper answer.
Popcorn Wall Texture Removal
Flattened the ceilings and now the walls look wrong? Doing both together costs far less than coming back.
Apartment and Rental Ceiling Removal
Own a fiveplex? Texas law treats that ceiling completely differently to the identical one in a fourplex next door.
Acoustic, Stucco and Cottage Cheese Ceiling Removal
Cottage cheese, stucco, acoustic, stipple. Different names, one product, and they all come off the same way.
Pre-Listing Ceiling Removal for Sellers
Listing in six weeks? Flat ceilings photograph better and stop the inspection conversation before it starts.
Popcorn Ceiling Removal Cost
Every number we quote from, published: per square foot, by room size, and what pushes a job to the top of the range.
Popcorn Ceiling Asbestos Guide
The ban was 1977 but ceilings kept getting sprayed into the mid eighties. That gap is the whole problem.
Remove, Skim or Cover
Three ways to get rid of a popcorn ceiling and only one of them is scraping. Here is when each wins.
DIY or Hire a Pro
The scraping is genuinely easy. It is the finishing afterwards that ends most DIY popcorn ceiling projects.
What popcorn ceiling removal costs in Austin
| Ceiling area | Removal only | Removal, retexture and paint | Typical rooms |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 sq ft | $1,150 to $2,025 | $1,500 to $3,000 | Two bedrooms |
| 750 sq ft | $1,725 to $3,038 | $2,250 to $4,500 | Living area and kitchen |
| 1,000 sq ft | $2,300 to $4,050 | $3,000 to $6,000 | Whole downstairs |
| 1,500 sq ft | $3,450 to $6,075 | $4,500 to $9,000 | Small single storey |
| 2,000 sq ft | $4,600 to $8,100 | $6,000 to $12,000 | Average Austin house |
What pushes a job to the top of the range: paint on the texture, ceilings above nine feet, damaged drywall underneath, a dead flat level 5 finish rather than a retexture, and working around a family still living in the house.
One Austin ceiling, before and after
Before
A single storey house off a street in north central Austin, sprayed acoustic texture throughout, untouched since the seventies.
- Texture yellowed and shedding grit onto furniture every time the ceiling fan ran
- Brown ring around the hallway light where a roof leak had been fixed but the ceiling never was
- Nail pops in visible rows along every joist, which the texture had been hiding for thirty years
- Sample taken first: negative, which is what let us scrape rather than hand it to an abatement contractor
After
Same room, same camera position, same afternoon light. Scraped, stained area cut out and replaced, pops reset, joints re-taped, shellac primer over the old stain, then a light knockdown sprayed back on and two flat coats.
- Light knockdown rather than dead flat, because the joists in this house had moved enough that a flat plane would have shown it
- Stain sealed with shellac primer so it cannot bleed back through in a year
- Four days on site, family stayed in the house the whole time behind zip doors
- Fixtures came down and went back rather than being bagged in place
How it works, in three steps
Call or send the form
Tell us the rooms, roughly the age of the house, and whether the ceiling has been painted. A person calls you back within one business day. If you already know your house predates 1986, say so on that call and we will start with the sample.
The walkthrough and the written quote
Someone comes out, measures the ceilings properly, looks at the drywall condition where they can, and leaves you a written quote with scrape, repair and finish on separate lines. Nobody is going to ask you to sign anything that day and nobody is going to phone you about it twice a week.
Job day through to clean
Furniture out or centred and sheeted, floors covered, vents taped, fixtures down. Scrape, repair, skim, sand on extraction, prime, two coats. Rooms come back to you as they finish rather than all at the end, and Del sends a photo at the end of each day.
Austin popcorn ceiling questions, answered
How much does popcorn ceiling removal cost in Austin?
Popcorn ceiling removal costs $2.30 to $4.05 per square foot in Austin, and the average Austin job runs $1,523 to $3,598 with most homeowners paying around $2,545. Crews here charge $55 to $65 an hour where they price by time. The spread is wide because a bare scrape, a scrape plus retexture and a scrape plus level 5 skim plus paint are three different jobs sold under one phrase, so the useful question to ask any contractor is which of those they have quoted.
Does my Austin house need an asbestos test?
An Austin house sprayed before 1986 needs an asbestos test, and one sprayed after that almost certainly does not. Manufacturers removed asbestos from textured products in the late seventies, but nobody recalled the stock already in warehouses, so sprayers worked through it into the mid eighties. Travis County's median construction year is 1999, which means most of the metro is clear. Central Austin is where the exposure sits: Allandale's median construction year is 1970, and Crestview, Windsor Park and Barton Hills are in similar territory.
Why will my ceiling not come off with water?
A ceiling that will not soften with water has been painted, and the paint film is stopping water reaching the acoustic texture underneath. Unpainted texture is water soluble and releases in soft wet sheets. A painted ceiling has to be sanded off with a shrouded sander on HEPA extraction or steamed, which roughly doubles the labour and moves the cost to $3.50 to $5.50 per square foot.
Should I go flat or put a new texture back on?
Go flat if the room has strong side light and you are happy to pay for a level 5 skim across the whole ceiling, and put a texture back if the drywall underneath has moved or if you are matching the rest of the house. Knockdown adds $1.00 to $1.75 per square foot and hides substrate imperfections. Dead flat adds $1.50 to $2.50 and hides nothing at all, which is exactly why it looks so good when the ceiling underneath deserves it.
How long will the house be disrupted?
A popcorn ceiling job takes one to five days depending on size. One bedroom is a day or two, a whole downstairs is three or four, and a full two storey house is four to six. Rooms are sealed and worked one at a time so the rest of the house stays usable, and each room comes back to you as it finishes rather than everything at the end.
Do I need a permit to remove a popcorn ceiling in Austin?
Scraping texture off a ceiling is finish work, and the City of Austin lists painting, papering, tiling, carpeting and similar finish work as exempt from building permits. Removing significant quantities of drywall is a separate question with its own thresholds, so a job that turns into a ceiling replacement can cross the line. Exempt work still has to comply with the building code, and one call to Development Services settles it for your specific house.
Questions we get asked
Do you charge for the quote?
No. The walkthrough and the written quote are free and there is no obligation attached to either.
Can you do just one room?
Yes. Single rooms are a real job and we price them properly rather than pricing them to push you toward a whole house. A 200 square foot bedroom in Hutto is a one to two day job and lands around $460 to $810 at metro rates, which is a perfectly sensible thing to buy on its own.
What happens if the asbestos sample comes back positive?
We step back and hand it to a contractor licensed by the Texas Department of State Health Services, whose register is public so you can check anyone who quotes you. We will come back afterwards and do the drywall finishing and painting once clearance is done. That sequence costs less than one company trying to be both things, and it is the only version we will do.
Do you work outside Austin?
Across Travis, Williamson and Hays counties. Round Rock is twenty five minutes up I-35 and priced exactly like a job inside the city, with no travel surcharge. San Marcos is the outer edge of the range and we are honest that a single room down there does not pay the drive.
Are you insured?
Yes, and the certificate of liability is available on request. Ask for it, from us or from anyone else quoting your ceiling.
Is there a licence I should be checking?
Texas does not issue a state licence for drywall, ceiling texture or interior remodelling, so nobody in this trade has one to show you and anybody implying otherwise is stretching. Texas does licence asbestos abatement contractors and consultants through the Department of State Health Services, and if your Pflugerville job turns into abatement, that is the register to check before you sign anything.
How soon can you start?
Usually two to three weeks out, longer in spring. Pre-listing work should be booked three weeks before your photography date, four if the house needs a sample first.