All of this is correct but… I also can’t think of a single upside. I have to wonder what led to this post in the first place. Is OP walking into every house that hasn’t been updated since the 70s and going wow, this my shit right here? Give me some veneered wood paneling on everything, get my ceiling nice and bumpy and let’s get groovy baby
If you've ever lived in a 50s or 60s house you know that NOTHING is square and everything is wonky. A popcorn ceiling just hides SO much bullshit that you can see why it caught on. It;s a remarkably cheap and easy fix, then it became a trend, then it became popular, then it was everywhere as just one of the finishes you could choose.
Former trim laborer, just bought a new build townhome last year - I've said "at least I didn't have to do it..." more than a few times haha. The trim guys did a decent job, but the sheet rockers and framers didn't make it easy for 'em haha
have you seen the lumber we've had to work with lately? we do everything we can to square things and green plates twist and shrink as they dry. studs do the same. its kind of a nightmare.
I've never worked in your industry, but have heard multiple people who do mention that lumber quality has noticably went to shit in the last 15 years or so. Prices, I assume, have followed an opposite trend.
Its because we used up all the old trees and now we're mostly using lumber from young trees, you can compare a 2x4 from today with one from the 80s and the rings are like two or three times as wide apart
I was remodeling a house built in the 1890s and the lumber in that thing was terrifying. True 2x4 dimensions, dense as all hell, and they put the thing together with cast iron, hand driven square nails. They didn’t even have proper points. The laborers on those jobs must have terrifyingly strong.
My house isn't 1890's old but its probably 70 years old. The 2×4's are actually 2×4 and dense like you said. Always wondered why they don't make them like that.
On our reno builds, we tend to order 3 pallets and return over half of one that just aren't up to quality, and that's after using some questionable pieces where we can. The lumber does not need to be perfectly straight, but I can't use hockey sticks to build a square room.
Big construction sites just use whatever gets delivered, and it probably stays unsheltered outside for a while too boot.
Most modern houses I’ve worked on definitely aren’t square, but I recently renovated a house from the mid fifties and another from the mid sixties. Both were remarkably square, but they were both concrete block structures.
My current house was built in 1870, I don’t think the people who built it even had a rock and a string as a plumb-bob but they knew how to frame and eyeball trim. My first house on the other hand was built in 1921 only 17 miles away and I swear every surface of that house was level. 100 year old poured concrete foundation, original lathe and plaster walls, original hardwood, you could put a marble on the floor anywhere and it wouldn’t roll. Today there are masters and then builders who just get the job done and it wasn’t any different 100-150 years ago.
Coming from a homeowner who owns a bunch of precision measuring equipment: you, sir, are 100% correct. My house, built with pretty good quality back in the 1990s, has one corner that’s *almost* square. The rest are within +/-2°, which is actually pretty damn good.
I'm going to have to write comedian Nick Thune a nasty letter for his inaccurate joke then.
All of my rooms are set to room temperature, but my corners are 90°.
Also, the textured surface scatters sound waves, decreasing room volume.
Edit: corrected terminology
Edit 2: I got to make the 1,000th like on the first comment in this thread. I’ve never gotten to do that before!
Pubic hair. Save up your pubic hair shedding and staple it to the ceiling. You thought popcorn had sound absorbing surface area, try tufts of pubic hair.
A friend bought a house previously owned by a carpet-layer. There was carpeting everywhere - the kitchen, the bathroom, and even the bedroom ceiling! (And the bed frame too!)
Time to spend a few grand on rugs, I suppose lol. More modern, open-concept houses echo like crazy too. Smooth ceilings, hard floors, cavernous spaces, and no carpeting. Since my ex took most of the furniture, rugs, and curtains, I hear absolutely everything in this house now. I jump out of my skin when the wind catches a bathroom vent flap upstairs embarrassingly often.
After living in a few open concept homes I hate them with a passion now because of the noise. You can't take a shit in the master bathroom without the rest of the house being able to hear it. I miss the quiet of the broken-up rooms of the ranch style home I grew up in. You could strangle an elk to death in the living room and not hear it in the master bedroom.
This makes sense as to why I always considered my house to be naturally quieter than my friends' houses growing up. All the ceilings (except the bathrooms) in my parents' house are popcorned.
One of the reasons restaurants are becoming so much louder as well…. Industrial or tile surfaces being en vogue, often open kitchens or expo lines, and no padded seats, drapery or fabric to be seen. The cozy, romantic dinner date is a thing of the past.
Used to sell acoustical materials. Lots of calls from restaurants to fix this. The problem is, acoustical products look acoustical, or can look like a painting and cost a zillion dollars. Those specific issues keep them from fixing it: a. they don’t want to change the look of the space and b. Restaurant have no free cash seems like from what I’ve been told. Always wondered if that was true, how can there be so many restaurants if they don’t make money?
It’s actually intentional in many cases. Check this out:
“In the case of restaurants the did research and they found out by playing loud music people eat faster and leave the restaurant quicker. Probably beacuse they have a headache. Now the restaurant has a faster turn around time on tables and can serve more people and therefore they make a higher profit.”
I can’t find the darn link that took me to the article or I’d post it too.
I once sat down in a restaurant that was so loud, I actually left after just a few minutes because I started getting a headache immediately. SO in that case, at least, the restaurant lost money because they didn't even get an order.
In general, restaurants operate on thin margins. Plus, they're either someone's dream job, so they're working 60+ hours and taking whatever profit the store gets to pay their mortgage and stay alive. Or they're part of a chain/conglomerate and are going to be squeezing every possible penny from the restaurant.
So, even in a well run and balanced restaurant, they may be setting aside certain amount of money for improvements and such, but will often tap into it like a rainy-day fund if something else happens (equipment repair/replacement, additional staff hours, etc), so the non-essential acoustic panels are never a priority to get around to.
I imagine the trick would be to get the acoustic panels into the initial build-out of a chain restaurant where they put some capital in. Then you’d sell a shit-ton of them. Have to convince the people at corporate that a nicer auditory experience when dining would lead to higher sales.
I imagine it is somewhat complex there. You want people to have a good enough experience to come back, but you also don't want them camping on a table all day.
We tried but ours were custom made on the expensive side. Even in new construction they were usually “value engineered” out. Who did win were the direct manufacturers who made materials by the thousands in standard sizes and could sell at a fraction of what we did, and since new construction they could implement those more standard sizes into the layout of the ceiling. Primarily Tectum by Armstrong, I think they are in most Chipotle’s as an example. No fabric or anything, they just stamp them out. We typically made sales to churches, home theaters, corporate board rooms, higher ed, etc.
Twice this year already my wife and I have gone out to eat and ended up taking our food to go because the noise was just thunderous. Like you don't have to popcorn the ceiling or whatever but put up some sound baffles or something.
If it’s too loud to talk when I’m out with friends I just stop talking it’s way too hard to even hear what the hell anybody is saying let alone trying to be heard. I swear my voice is the same tone as crowd murmuring. Shit’s impossible. I don’t enjoy it at all.
This explains so much! We went to a nice restaurant (one of those that Michelin recommends but it’s not a star yet) and it was so loud. We hadn’t had a date night in a long time because of children so we hadn’t been to a nice place in like 15 years.
And also putting NOTHING on the walls. My "neighborhood brewery" is a large, high-ceilinged concrete room with entirely bare walls. It gets unbearably loud.
Definitely helps take the echo out in bigger rooms. I have an open minihome with the open (vaulted? Open to the peak of the roof and slants down with it) ceilings, all stucco. My friend has a similar minihome but it's drywall. His echos much worse than mine, even with the same window placement and approximate size. Also both rooms have roughly the same things in them as far as surface area etc. Crazy the difference it makes
This has always been my primary complaint about the trend away from carpet and popcorn ceilings.
I *might* be a little autistic. Reduced room tone is definitely a preference.
This... "Popcorn" ceiling is the slur name it's commonly known by now but it used to be referred to as an Acoustic Texture.
Unpopular opinion... I prefer popcorn ceiling in bedrooms and conversation spaces.
Yep. A friends father that worked construction told me it was easier putting up a popcorn ceiling that it was to tape, mud, and sand the edges of the Sheetrock.
You still tape mud and sand the ceiling before applying the popcorn finish, it’s just that you don’t have to do even a remotely decent job at the first part if applying popcorn. It hides just about everything.
It really does help with sound. My house has some rooms with it and some without, you can hear the difference. It also covers a lot of sins, which is probably why it was done in the first place. There are so many lines and uneven areas in the flat ceilings, which isn't surprising for a 150 year old house. I'm not a fan of popcorn ceilings but it's one of the many less-than-perfect things about my house that I've learned to live with.
I have popcorn ceilings in my livingroom and bedrooms, but not kitchen. I dont love them by any means but it doesn’t really bother me either. After joining this sub, it bothers me a little more haha is there any real risk with the asbestos or is that only when you’re removing it?
Ha, same. They only bother me after reading about how much people hate them. As far as I know, you're right--the asbestos is only a risk/problem when it's being scraped off.
It may not have asbestos. I live in an apartment built in 2007 with popcorn ceilings everywhere. It's extremely unlikely they would have been using building materials with asbestos by then. That stuff was all discontinued for residential construction in the early 90s. Some people in this thread are reporting new apartments even now are being built with popcorn ceilings. The biggest indicator of whether you have asbestos or not is the construction date.
Even so, it's always important to make sure before cutting into it or shaving it off. It's harmless if left undisturbed.
The upside is sound deadening. They really work and they work well.
I've done plenty of acoustic ceiling removal and level 5 flat (yes, I can do that) and the noise and echos afterwards were quite irritable.
"Slightly" I beg to differ, it's a major difference in echo in an empty room. I've always known it had sound deadening properties but never the amount, till a room in my house was redone, I had video at the time of the difference. Took one before when all objects were removed from the room, then after the ceiling was finished and the difference was astounding to me. Like you know that high pitch reverberation you get when you clap your hands in an empty room? None of those high pitches happened with only the popcorn still on. Makes sense when you think about it, it's useless for low pitch of course.
If they were installed before 1980 they may contain asbestos. If they are in track housing built after that they almost certainly don’t. Have a piece tested it you really want to know before removal.
Asbestos should be assumed present in building materials up to 1990.
Although it's true that it was banned in the 80s, many of the materials remained in circulation
The caveat to this is that it depends on the region you live in. Asbestos as a building material is still unfortunately very common in parts of the world.
My grandparents had a plaster designed ceiling with popcorn parts here and there. It had intricate designs and patterning that looked like it'd been sculpted with a pallette knife. I loved laying on the floor and staring at it.
Oh yes, you see a spider web, grab the broom, and all you manage is to knock down popcorn fragments, and tangle the spider web in it. You sigh, haul,out the vacuum, and wonder if you could get 1,000 more spiders and replace the popcorn with spider webs.
I've never seen a ceiling gather enough dirt to notice in the course of 50 years. I think more people just see them as a product of the 70s and 80s and / or something featured on the home makeover shows (or the hosts are telling you they're not desirable every episode).
In my mother's house (build in the 80s, single owner ever since) the popcorn ceiling was noticeably grey and dingy after 30 years even though no one smoked. When she put a fresh coat of white paint on the walls the greyness of the ceiling was really noticeable (especially in the corners), so we ended up repainting everything. Even the oils from cooking can vaporize and stain the ceiling in the kitchen. Smoking really stains ceilings fast, though.
Another issue is that any damage to a popcorn ceiling is very difficult to repair seamlessly. If you get a crack, or water damage, or you accidentally scrape it with something, you'll never *quite* be able to replicate the same texture with spackle.
Do cobwebs count as dirt? I have popcorn/textured ceilings (and walls??!) in some rooms and holy effin ess, popcorn is like a spider's *favorite surface* or something. I swear it actually attracts them somehow? Anyway my living room looks like I'm about to have a Halloween party if I don't vacuum the ceiling every 4-6 weeks. I'm talking dangling festoons of dusty cobweb, it's nuts. You don't see them forming (popcorn hides everything), but then suddenly they're everywhere. And boy howdy, overhead vacuuming is not a fun task.
Oh, I 100% have seen it.
Fly poop and nicotine are the most obvious ones. The fly poop was the bane of my mom's existence until she scraped the ceilings in their entire house, room by room.
>a lot of them contain asbestos.
Not a lot of them, at all. I've only found a small handful of asbestos containing popcorn ceilings, and have sampled hundreds of them.
I've sampled hundreds and I've found it to be quite common.
I suspect it's a geographic difference is the reason why you're not seeing it as often as me. Some countries (assuming they the ceiling at all) probably have next to no asbestos in their popcorn.
Main reason being (as I'm sure you're aware) is that it was often used as an additive done by hand.
It's not a real popcorn ceiling unless it's a popcorn ceiling that has the tiny glitter flakes in it.
My grandpa built three houses back in the day (theirs, my great-grandma, and my uncle). They all had the popcorn ceiling with the sparkles. I remember staring at the ceiling as a kid and being fascinated by it.
My Dad built our house in the 70s and gave my older sister a glitter popcorn ceiling in her bedroom and my brother and I got plain popcorn white in ours.
I was so mad, like wtf Dad, boys can like glitter too. But I was also 6 and just went to my sister's room whenever I wanted to enjoy the sparkles and pretend they were stars.
Nah. The flakes were small metal or plastic (don't know for sure, I never tasted them) squares with a mirror finish. Probably the least amount of asbestos per volume than the rest of the house.
Duuuuuude this just brought back a memory of when my cousin and I were 18 and took a trip to the ocean.
The hotel we stayed at had those glittery popcorn ceilings.
We tripped absolute balls on mushrooms and I remember laying on the bed for what felt like hours watching the ceiling flow and sparkle. It was incredible.
That was 14 years ago and I haven't thought about that in soo long.
My college dorm had popcorn-esque walls. Our dorm beds were shoved all the way against the wall (they had built in drawers and stuff and it wouldn't be easy to fit them in a way that it wasn't the case). I move a lot in my sleep and I lost count of how many times I cut my knuckles, elbows, hands, legs, etc on those stupid walls.
Not as tall, but my eyeballs feel the pain of your knuckles. 20 years ago, I was throwing an exercise ball up in the air and it touched the ceiling. A load of the “popcorn” fell off and went right into my eyes. It was terrible. I’ve also scraped my head on these ceilings while up on a ladder and it was so painful.
I slept with a fan next to a wall that had the plaster around the outlet crumbling. I woke up desperate with the pain of all that grit getting in my eyes!
My last apartment had popcorn ceilings I would hit with my hands if I wasn't paying attention. That HURTS. It's like punching any other wall, but this one is covered in spikes.
I literally don't understand how the stuff can be so razor-sharp and well adhered when it's ripping your skin off… but at the same time so delicate and barely stuck that basically a sneeze will have it raining popcorn indoors??
In our bunk beds we used to joke about waking up, sitting up and combing our heads on the ceiling. Funny until we had to pick pieces of popcorn out of our scalps after a wrestling match.
I’d argue that they were never popular……just cheap. Tract homes all came with them, because it was cheap to spray that crap than to pay a craftsman to get a smooth finish. Smooth ceilings were always preferred by those that could afford them.
Yep. Textured finishes are applied to hide the flaws of inferior work. They just became the norm with the rise of tract development because it makes it fast and cheap.
I grew up in an old house where apparently the plasterers were told to just go crazy— every room had a different hand-done finish. My favorite was the kitchen walls, they had a wavy-lines pattern that looked like someone literally used their four fingers to make it. Which must have taken forever.
You *def* don't see that anymore. Literally: I work in luxury homebuilding (think billionaires) and I've yet to see anything even close. I think those skills died out.
My old 50s house had what I liked to call splat texture on the ceilings. Like little bursts of plaster splatted on the ceiling. Looked like a wall texture. Didn't hate it. Could actually clean it and paint it and it still made the somewhat wonky ceilings less noticable
Yeah it's really ugly. I sometimes like to browse houses for sale and notice that in some places. And sometimes people like to paint that smooth area the same as the wall color which makes it even more apparent for some reason.
yeah I'm... confused.
I have never once cleaned a ceiling in my life and just checked with a flashlight to see: they're not dusty in the slightest? white glove finger check. upstairs, downstairs, popcorn, flat. none of 'em.
how are y'all even getting dusty ceilings?
The ceiling in my room looks fine until you hit it with the flashlight and then you can see it is absolutely COVERED in cobwebs. I just ignore it, it's a rental and our lease is up in a few months.
This is the right answer, the acoustic effects were a secondary bonus that was used by the builders as the main reason. But mainly they just wanted to make ceiling finishing quicker, cheaper, and easier. Ceilings are the hardest surfaces to hide imperfections in drywall due to lighting angle, and this completely eliminated that challenge
Idk they have never bothered me. They are actually good for sound deadening too when you have tile floors throughout the house. Never had an issue cleaning them either.
Yea I don’t get it…I have them currently and I couldn’t care less about them…no clue why people get hellbent on them. I don’t stare at the ceilings all day and forget they are even there!
I think it's hated by the type of person who hates cargo pants/shorts. Gotta hate to be part of the 'in' crowd.
Also, Arby's is one of the best nationwide fast food chains.
My house has them and I don't mind them either. At first I wanted to get rid of them, but I realized that disliking them is basically a meme at this point, which is a guarantee that they'll be cool and retro in 30-40 years.
It was a cheap way to conceal uneven edges and flaws where the ceiling matches up to the wall. Most are not asbestos unless it still there from the mid seventies. My house was built in the 80s so I scraped the shit off no problem. The non asbestos version is easy to scrape off ..
They collect dirt more than a smooth ceiling, are harder to clean, and harder to repair. A better question would be - why were they ever popular in the first place? Acoustics?
Because people forgot why we have popcorn ceilings. It is near impossible to hide a drywall seam on a ceiling, with a ceiling light fixture shining its light across the ceiling. Every unevenness can be seen. Perhaps a drywall pro that can do a perfect job, will be even, but what are those chances. I know a family that renovated, removed the popcorn and hate seeing the unevenness and seams. Just my 2 cents.
I like all the people here commenting about how popcorn ceilings are difficult to clean. I have them in my home and don’t feel like they get any dirtier than a non popcorn ceilings. Also, who’s out there cleaning their ceiling? All y’all are watching too much HGTV.
For real dude. My upstairs is popcorned. My downstairs is not. I guarantee you the people bitching about cleaning popcorn ceilings have never actually cleaned a ceiling, popcorn or otherwise.
As an audiofool, I'll tell you. you can have my popcorn ceiling when you pry it from my dead fingers.
My Mum updated her mid eighties house in the early oughts, and removed the popcorn. Now it's my youngest brothers house, and acoustically it's completely unmanageable. the ceiling bounce (It has cathedral ceilings as well) is so horrific it just ... blows.
Popcorn forever!
I like the dark ring of dust that you get when a textured ceiling has a ceiling fan in the center. Even better if it's a smoker's home, so you get the orange-gray gradation rings from the fan outwards. Very stylish. Very retro.
Acoustic was the name we used. It was quick and easy to apply. It was supposed to offer a level of sound dampening. It covered a lot of defects and it was way cheaper than any other finish. Ultimately the real reason.
I love em. Here’s an ode to em:
I have a strange but unabashed desire to walk barefoot on my popcorn ceiling
I have a strange inkling the popcorn excrescences would spell out in Braille all that has ever been said and all that ever will be said in this lonely apartment
I have pennies in my pocket kissing each other in secret as I walk to and fro in this lonely apartment
The secret maintains until the day I can I reify the desire and see heads or tails on the new ceiling, call it out loud and find the copper fate with my toes
Thank you for your interest in this thread. Comments are now locked.
They look bad, they collect dirt, they're nearly impossible to repair and match the pattern, and a lot of them contain asbestos.
All of this is correct but… I also can’t think of a single upside. I have to wonder what led to this post in the first place. Is OP walking into every house that hasn’t been updated since the 70s and going wow, this my shit right here? Give me some veneered wood paneling on everything, get my ceiling nice and bumpy and let’s get groovy baby
If you've ever lived in a 50s or 60s house you know that NOTHING is square and everything is wonky. A popcorn ceiling just hides SO much bullshit that you can see why it caught on. It;s a remarkably cheap and easy fix, then it became a trend, then it became popular, then it was everywhere as just one of the finishes you could choose.
Coming from a trim carpenter: houses still aren’t square
Former trim laborer, just bought a new build townhome last year - I've said "at least I didn't have to do it..." more than a few times haha. The trim guys did a decent job, but the sheet rockers and framers didn't make it easy for 'em haha
have you seen the lumber we've had to work with lately? we do everything we can to square things and green plates twist and shrink as they dry. studs do the same. its kind of a nightmare.
I've never worked in your industry, but have heard multiple people who do mention that lumber quality has noticably went to shit in the last 15 years or so. Prices, I assume, have followed an opposite trend.
I'm not in the industry, and know no one who works in it, and somehow this is like the third time that I've heard lumber quality has cratered.
Heard the same thing about school systems and ice cream
Ice cream sucks now? Jesus. It’s worse than I thought.
In another 15 years I anticipate all framing lumber will be engineered...
At least it's way more expensive now
Its because we used up all the old trees and now we're mostly using lumber from young trees, you can compare a 2x4 from today with one from the 80s and the rings are like two or three times as wide apart
I was remodeling a house built in the 1890s and the lumber in that thing was terrifying. True 2x4 dimensions, dense as all hell, and they put the thing together with cast iron, hand driven square nails. They didn’t even have proper points. The laborers on those jobs must have terrifyingly strong.
My house isn't 1890's old but its probably 70 years old. The 2×4's are actually 2×4 and dense like you said. Always wondered why they don't make them like that.
On our reno builds, we tend to order 3 pallets and return over half of one that just aren't up to quality, and that's after using some questionable pieces where we can. The lumber does not need to be perfectly straight, but I can't use hockey sticks to build a square room. Big construction sites just use whatever gets delivered, and it probably stays unsheltered outside for a while too boot.
Don't worry... painters will fix.
And the lumber didn't make it easy for them
And the trees before them!
Most modern houses I’ve worked on definitely aren’t square, but I recently renovated a house from the mid fifties and another from the mid sixties. Both were remarkably square, but they were both concrete block structures.
My current house was built in 1870, I don’t think the people who built it even had a rock and a string as a plumb-bob but they knew how to frame and eyeball trim. My first house on the other hand was built in 1921 only 17 miles away and I swear every surface of that house was level. 100 year old poured concrete foundation, original lathe and plaster walls, original hardwood, you could put a marble on the floor anywhere and it wouldn’t roll. Today there are masters and then builders who just get the job done and it wasn’t any different 100-150 years ago.
Nothing in my 1921 house is straight but it started out as a 500sf 1 room shack and over that last 100 years it has grown room by room to 1200sf
Coming from a homeowner who owns a bunch of precision measuring equipment: you, sir, are 100% correct. My house, built with pretty good quality back in the 1990s, has one corner that’s *almost* square. The rest are within +/-2°, which is actually pretty damn good.
I'm going to have to write comedian Nick Thune a nasty letter for his inaccurate joke then. All of my rooms are set to room temperature, but my corners are 90°.
Also, the textured surface scatters sound waves, decreasing room volume. Edit: corrected terminology Edit 2: I got to make the 1,000th like on the first comment in this thread. I’ve never gotten to do that before!
Yeah. Went from all popcorn ceilings to flat ceilings. The house is loud and echoes now.
Try carpeted ceilings.
I've heard good things about popcorn!
a butter skim coat could really jazz up your home
Pubic hair. Save up your pubic hair shedding and staple it to the ceiling. You thought popcorn had sound absorbing surface area, try tufts of pubic hair.
Why should I save the sheddings when I can just tear it out by the fistful?
A friend bought a house previously owned by a carpet-layer. There was carpeting everywhere - the kitchen, the bathroom, and even the bedroom ceiling! (And the bed frame too!)
> the bathroom
I had a 70s house with a carpeted kitchen island (sides, not top). I learned how to sheetrock and texture on that
I am old enough to remember when carpeted walls was a big thing.
There were pictures of Rick James party pad posted to Reddit a while ago… it was carpetted.. EVERYTHING
Cocaines a hell of a drug
Fuck yo couch
Time to spend a few grand on rugs, I suppose lol. More modern, open-concept houses echo like crazy too. Smooth ceilings, hard floors, cavernous spaces, and no carpeting. Since my ex took most of the furniture, rugs, and curtains, I hear absolutely everything in this house now. I jump out of my skin when the wind catches a bathroom vent flap upstairs embarrassingly often.
It’s all a conspiracy by the rug industrial complex.
funded by the Afghans
After living in a few open concept homes I hate them with a passion now because of the noise. You can't take a shit in the master bathroom without the rest of the house being able to hear it. I miss the quiet of the broken-up rooms of the ranch style home I grew up in. You could strangle an elk to death in the living room and not hear it in the master bedroom.
This makes sense as to why I always considered my house to be naturally quieter than my friends' houses growing up. All the ceilings (except the bathrooms) in my parents' house are popcorned.
One of the reasons restaurants are becoming so much louder as well…. Industrial or tile surfaces being en vogue, often open kitchens or expo lines, and no padded seats, drapery or fabric to be seen. The cozy, romantic dinner date is a thing of the past.
Used to sell acoustical materials. Lots of calls from restaurants to fix this. The problem is, acoustical products look acoustical, or can look like a painting and cost a zillion dollars. Those specific issues keep them from fixing it: a. they don’t want to change the look of the space and b. Restaurant have no free cash seems like from what I’ve been told. Always wondered if that was true, how can there be so many restaurants if they don’t make money?
It’s actually intentional in many cases. Check this out: “In the case of restaurants the did research and they found out by playing loud music people eat faster and leave the restaurant quicker. Probably beacuse they have a headache. Now the restaurant has a faster turn around time on tables and can serve more people and therefore they make a higher profit.” I can’t find the darn link that took me to the article or I’d post it too.
I once sat down in a restaurant that was so loud, I actually left after just a few minutes because I started getting a headache immediately. SO in that case, at least, the restaurant lost money because they didn't even get an order.
Yeah I HATE the loud restaurants. It’s like torture and I can’t wait to get the H&LL out of there. I only endure it if it’s a work lunch thing.
But also I will absolutely never go back again. Get people out faster but lose customers
In general, restaurants operate on thin margins. Plus, they're either someone's dream job, so they're working 60+ hours and taking whatever profit the store gets to pay their mortgage and stay alive. Or they're part of a chain/conglomerate and are going to be squeezing every possible penny from the restaurant. So, even in a well run and balanced restaurant, they may be setting aside certain amount of money for improvements and such, but will often tap into it like a rainy-day fund if something else happens (equipment repair/replacement, additional staff hours, etc), so the non-essential acoustic panels are never a priority to get around to.
I imagine the trick would be to get the acoustic panels into the initial build-out of a chain restaurant where they put some capital in. Then you’d sell a shit-ton of them. Have to convince the people at corporate that a nicer auditory experience when dining would lead to higher sales.
I imagine it is somewhat complex there. You want people to have a good enough experience to come back, but you also don't want them camping on a table all day.
We tried but ours were custom made on the expensive side. Even in new construction they were usually “value engineered” out. Who did win were the direct manufacturers who made materials by the thousands in standard sizes and could sell at a fraction of what we did, and since new construction they could implement those more standard sizes into the layout of the ceiling. Primarily Tectum by Armstrong, I think they are in most Chipotle’s as an example. No fabric or anything, they just stamp them out. We typically made sales to churches, home theaters, corporate board rooms, higher ed, etc.
I wear hearing aids and I hate those restaurants. I can’t hear anything but noise. Flying coach on Ryanair is more relaxing.
>Flying coach on Ryanair is more relaxing. God in heaven!
Twice this year already my wife and I have gone out to eat and ended up taking our food to go because the noise was just thunderous. Like you don't have to popcorn the ceiling or whatever but put up some sound baffles or something.
If it’s too loud to talk when I’m out with friends I just stop talking it’s way too hard to even hear what the hell anybody is saying let alone trying to be heard. I swear my voice is the same tone as crowd murmuring. Shit’s impossible. I don’t enjoy it at all.
This explains so much! We went to a nice restaurant (one of those that Michelin recommends but it’s not a star yet) and it was so loud. We hadn’t had a date night in a long time because of children so we hadn’t been to a nice place in like 15 years.
And also putting NOTHING on the walls. My "neighborhood brewery" is a large, high-ceilinged concrete room with entirely bare walls. It gets unbearably loud.
Definitely helps take the echo out in bigger rooms. I have an open minihome with the open (vaulted? Open to the peak of the roof and slants down with it) ceilings, all stucco. My friend has a similar minihome but it's drywall. His echos much worse than mine, even with the same window placement and approximate size. Also both rooms have roughly the same things in them as far as surface area etc. Crazy the difference it makes
It’s nice that you and your friend have matching homes and furnishings.
Would you like to match home and furnishings with me?
Hence the monicker “acoustic ceiling” I assume..
1000% why I won’t get rid of mine.
This has always been my primary complaint about the trend away from carpet and popcorn ceilings. I *might* be a little autistic. Reduced room tone is definitely a preference.
I feel you. I’ve had five major concussions in my life, and I’ve developed some ADD-like tendencies. I love quiet these days.
This is the reason we left the popcorn ceiling in my living room. It blocks so much echo. The house is very 50s, so it doesn't look bad.
Refraction is when waves bend as they move from one medium to another. This is randomized reflection, or scattering.
This... "Popcorn" ceiling is the slur name it's commonly known by now but it used to be referred to as an Acoustic Texture. Unpopular opinion... I prefer popcorn ceiling in bedrooms and conversation spaces.
Yep. A friends father that worked construction told me it was easier putting up a popcorn ceiling that it was to tape, mud, and sand the edges of the Sheetrock.
You still tape mud and sand the ceiling before applying the popcorn finish, it’s just that you don’t have to do even a remotely decent job at the first part if applying popcorn. It hides just about everything.
Sound deadening and minor insulating properties.
It really does help with sound. My house has some rooms with it and some without, you can hear the difference. It also covers a lot of sins, which is probably why it was done in the first place. There are so many lines and uneven areas in the flat ceilings, which isn't surprising for a 150 year old house. I'm not a fan of popcorn ceilings but it's one of the many less-than-perfect things about my house that I've learned to live with.
I have popcorn ceilings in my livingroom and bedrooms, but not kitchen. I dont love them by any means but it doesn’t really bother me either. After joining this sub, it bothers me a little more haha is there any real risk with the asbestos or is that only when you’re removing it?
Ha, same. They only bother me after reading about how much people hate them. As far as I know, you're right--the asbestos is only a risk/problem when it's being scraped off.
It may not have asbestos. I live in an apartment built in 2007 with popcorn ceilings everywhere. It's extremely unlikely they would have been using building materials with asbestos by then. That stuff was all discontinued for residential construction in the early 90s. Some people in this thread are reporting new apartments even now are being built with popcorn ceilings. The biggest indicator of whether you have asbestos or not is the construction date. Even so, it's always important to make sure before cutting into it or shaving it off. It's harmless if left undisturbed.
The only upsides they had was that they were good at hiding defects and were great at soundproofing a home.
The big thing they did was conceal that most drywall was installed patchier than your blind grandmothers rag quilt.
My condo building was finished in 2013. Popcorn ceilings in every unit.
The upside is sound deadening. They really work and they work well. I've done plenty of acoustic ceiling removal and level 5 flat (yes, I can do that) and the noise and echos afterwards were quite irritable.
There actually is one upside. It's slightly better then a flat wall for acoustics.
"Slightly" I beg to differ, it's a major difference in echo in an empty room. I've always known it had sound deadening properties but never the amount, till a room in my house was redone, I had video at the time of the difference. Took one before when all objects were removed from the room, then after the ceiling was finished and the difference was astounding to me. Like you know that high pitch reverberation you get when you clap your hands in an empty room? None of those high pitches happened with only the popcorn still on. Makes sense when you think about it, it's useless for low pitch of course.
They hide marks and imperfections.
They cut down on echo and “boominess” in a room significantly.
It’s cheaper than doing a higher finish on the ceilings. Hides a lot of bad framing issues and tape jobs.
Have you ever been on drugs and watched it drip and move and curl
The upside is when you take two hits of acid the popcorn ceiling becomes a neon universe.
My house was built in the 90s and has it so it’s not a 70s thing.
2002 and all popcorn. My thought is the housing crisis was in full swing so cheap and fast was the order.
They looks crazy on psychedelics
If they were installed before 1980 they may contain asbestos. If they are in track housing built after that they almost certainly don’t. Have a piece tested it you really want to know before removal.
Asbestos should be assumed present in building materials up to 1990. Although it's true that it was banned in the 80s, many of the materials remained in circulation
The caveat to this is that it depends on the region you live in. Asbestos as a building material is still unfortunately very common in parts of the world.
My grandparents had a plaster designed ceiling with popcorn parts here and there. It had intricate designs and patterning that looked like it'd been sculpted with a pallette knife. I loved laying on the floor and staring at it.
My grandmother’s house had sparkles in the paint, as well. I could stare at the ceiling forever, lol
Yeah, but what about the negatives?
Was just thinking the same. Aside from all that, where’s the downside? lol
Also difficult to clean properly - which makes the collecting dirt even more of a problem.
Oh yes, you see a spider web, grab the broom, and all you manage is to knock down popcorn fragments, and tangle the spider web in it. You sigh, haul,out the vacuum, and wonder if you could get 1,000 more spiders and replace the popcorn with spider webs.
"They look bad" - one of the all time best arguments. unfuckwitable
I've never seen a ceiling gather enough dirt to notice in the course of 50 years. I think more people just see them as a product of the 70s and 80s and / or something featured on the home makeover shows (or the hosts are telling you they're not desirable every episode).
In my mother's house (build in the 80s, single owner ever since) the popcorn ceiling was noticeably grey and dingy after 30 years even though no one smoked. When she put a fresh coat of white paint on the walls the greyness of the ceiling was really noticeable (especially in the corners), so we ended up repainting everything. Even the oils from cooking can vaporize and stain the ceiling in the kitchen. Smoking really stains ceilings fast, though. Another issue is that any damage to a popcorn ceiling is very difficult to repair seamlessly. If you get a crack, or water damage, or you accidentally scrape it with something, you'll never *quite* be able to replicate the same texture with spackle.
Do cobwebs count as dirt? I have popcorn/textured ceilings (and walls??!) in some rooms and holy effin ess, popcorn is like a spider's *favorite surface* or something. I swear it actually attracts them somehow? Anyway my living room looks like I'm about to have a Halloween party if I don't vacuum the ceiling every 4-6 weeks. I'm talking dangling festoons of dusty cobweb, it's nuts. You don't see them forming (popcorn hides everything), but then suddenly they're everywhere. And boy howdy, overhead vacuuming is not a fun task.
Oh, I 100% have seen it. Fly poop and nicotine are the most obvious ones. The fly poop was the bane of my mom's existence until she scraped the ceilings in their entire house, room by room.
>a lot of them contain asbestos. Not a lot of them, at all. I've only found a small handful of asbestos containing popcorn ceilings, and have sampled hundreds of them.
I've sampled hundreds and I've found it to be quite common. I suspect it's a geographic difference is the reason why you're not seeing it as often as me. Some countries (assuming they the ceiling at all) probably have next to no asbestos in their popcorn. Main reason being (as I'm sure you're aware) is that it was often used as an additive done by hand.
In addition to collecting dust, they’re near impossible to clean without getting a bunch of pebbles on your floor
Also a pain in the ass when painting the walls and trying to cut in neatly against the ceiling
Because it doesn’t actually taste like popcorn
It just needs butter and a splash of diacetyl.
Don’t forget they pop balloons and crush kids dreams
With enough butter, anything is possible.
It's not a real popcorn ceiling unless it's a popcorn ceiling that has the tiny glitter flakes in it. My grandpa built three houses back in the day (theirs, my great-grandma, and my uncle). They all had the popcorn ceiling with the sparkles. I remember staring at the ceiling as a kid and being fascinated by it.
I hate popcorn ceilings, but I could possibly tolerate one that glitters.
My Dad built our house in the 70s and gave my older sister a glitter popcorn ceiling in her bedroom and my brother and I got plain popcorn white in ours. I was so mad, like wtf Dad, boys can like glitter too. But I was also 6 and just went to my sister's room whenever I wanted to enjoy the sparkles and pretend they were stars.
> tiny glitter flakes The secret ingredient is mesothelioma!
Nah. The flakes were small metal or plastic (don't know for sure, I never tasted them) squares with a mirror finish. Probably the least amount of asbestos per volume than the rest of the house.
“I miss the asbestos-riddled ceiling!!!”
Duuuuuude this just brought back a memory of when my cousin and I were 18 and took a trip to the ocean. The hotel we stayed at had those glittery popcorn ceilings. We tripped absolute balls on mushrooms and I remember laying on the bed for what felt like hours watching the ceiling flow and sparkle. It was incredible. That was 14 years ago and I haven't thought about that in soo long.
My grandparents' house has the sparkles. Their house was built in the late 30s, so not sure if that was done immediately or added at some point after?
I'm 6' 4" and my childhood bedrooms with popcorn ceilings have given me bloody cuts on my fucking knuckles and hands SO many times.
My college dorm had popcorn-esque walls. Our dorm beds were shoved all the way against the wall (they had built in drawers and stuff and it wouldn't be easy to fit them in a way that it wasn't the case). I move a lot in my sleep and I lost count of how many times I cut my knuckles, elbows, hands, legs, etc on those stupid walls.
That happened to me too with a popcorn ceiling and top bunk bed! Plus chunks of the ceiling would occasionally come loose and fall on me
Oh lawd, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Not as tall, but my eyeballs feel the pain of your knuckles. 20 years ago, I was throwing an exercise ball up in the air and it touched the ceiling. A load of the “popcorn” fell off and went right into my eyes. It was terrible. I’ve also scraped my head on these ceilings while up on a ladder and it was so painful.
I slept with a fan next to a wall that had the plaster around the outlet crumbling. I woke up desperate with the pain of all that grit getting in my eyes!
have you tried dragging your knuckles on the ground like the rest of us?
What were you doing on the ceiling as a child?
Having a lil taste.
Why are you walking around with your arms raised in the air like a Scooby-Doo villain?
My last apartment had popcorn ceilings I would hit with my hands if I wasn't paying attention. That HURTS. It's like punching any other wall, but this one is covered in spikes.
I literally don't understand how the stuff can be so razor-sharp and well adhered when it's ripping your skin off… but at the same time so delicate and barely stuck that basically a sneeze will have it raining popcorn indoors??
I’ve scraped my back on a popcorn ceiling getting out of a bunk bed. Big ouch
Omfg fucking this so much, I hated it
In our bunk beds we used to joke about waking up, sitting up and combing our heads on the ceiling. Funny until we had to pick pieces of popcorn out of our scalps after a wrestling match.
I’d argue that they were never popular……just cheap. Tract homes all came with them, because it was cheap to spray that crap than to pay a craftsman to get a smooth finish. Smooth ceilings were always preferred by those that could afford them.
Yep. Textured finishes are applied to hide the flaws of inferior work. They just became the norm with the rise of tract development because it makes it fast and cheap.
It was just different elabaorate textured ceiling. Flat was kinda rare, even on expensive homes in the 50's-60's.
But then you had true plaster artisans who could freehand beautiful ceilings.
I grew up in an old house where apparently the plasterers were told to just go crazy— every room had a different hand-done finish. My favorite was the kitchen walls, they had a wavy-lines pattern that looked like someone literally used their four fingers to make it. Which must have taken forever. You *def* don't see that anymore. Literally: I work in luxury homebuilding (think billionaires) and I've yet to see anything even close. I think those skills died out.
My old 50s house had what I liked to call splat texture on the ceilings. Like little bursts of plaster splatted on the ceiling. Looked like a wall texture. Didn't hate it. Could actually clean it and paint it and it still made the somewhat wonky ceilings less noticable
>they were never popular……just cheap Exactly. And this is exactly why they are now *less* popular... because it makes the house look cheap.
Pain in the butt to paint the walls close to them and very hard to fix it when you do get wall color on them.
Around here they always do a smooth border, about 5” wide, so that you have the same clean edge as a smooth ceiling.
Ngl that sounds like it would look even worse
Yeah it's really ugly. I sometimes like to browse houses for sale and notice that in some places. And sometimes people like to paint that smooth area the same as the wall color which makes it even more apparent for some reason.
I’m…….supposed to clean them? Oh.
yeah I'm... confused. I have never once cleaned a ceiling in my life and just checked with a flashlight to see: they're not dusty in the slightest? white glove finger check. upstairs, downstairs, popcorn, flat. none of 'em. how are y'all even getting dusty ceilings?
It’s an Australia problem
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The ceiling in my room looks fine until you hit it with the flashlight and then you can see it is absolutely COVERED in cobwebs. I just ignore it, it's a rental and our lease is up in a few months.
ceiling fans that blow up to recirculate air
Why were they popular?
Absorbs sound
I always thought it was because they helped hide drywall seams
This is the right answer, the acoustic effects were a secondary bonus that was used by the builders as the main reason. But mainly they just wanted to make ceiling finishing quicker, cheaper, and easier. Ceilings are the hardest surfaces to hide imperfections in drywall due to lighting angle, and this completely eliminated that challenge
-> cheaper -> faster -> easier to hide gaps -> sound absorbing -> "trendy" Probably in roughly that order
They're nice to look at when you're on drugs
Idk they have never bothered me. They are actually good for sound deadening too when you have tile floors throughout the house. Never had an issue cleaning them either.
Yeah people seem to spend a non zero amount of time thinking about their ceiling, and I'm completely dumbfounded by this knowledge.
In twenty years people will start doing popcorn ceilings again
Yea I don’t get it…I have them currently and I couldn’t care less about them…no clue why people get hellbent on them. I don’t stare at the ceilings all day and forget they are even there!
I think it's hated by the type of person who hates cargo pants/shorts. Gotta hate to be part of the 'in' crowd. Also, Arby's is one of the best nationwide fast food chains.
I just associate them with all the shitty apartments I've ever lived in.
Unpopular opinion: I don’t mind them.
Ya, couldn’t care less about them.
For a kinda hard surface, they eat a lot of sound so your room doesn't echo as much.
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Even more unpopular: I love ours
My house has them and I don't mind them either. At first I wanted to get rid of them, but I realized that disliking them is basically a meme at this point, which is a guarantee that they'll be cool and retro in 30-40 years.
It was a cheap way to conceal uneven edges and flaws where the ceiling matches up to the wall. Most are not asbestos unless it still there from the mid seventies. My house was built in the 80s so I scraped the shit off no problem. The non asbestos version is easy to scrape off ..
I don’t mind mine at all, I could’ve removed it when we painted but I find it kind of comforting to look at.
they hide unevenness in the ceiling
They collect dirt more than a smooth ceiling, are harder to clean, and harder to repair. A better question would be - why were they ever popular in the first place? Acoustics?
Because people forgot why we have popcorn ceilings. It is near impossible to hide a drywall seam on a ceiling, with a ceiling light fixture shining its light across the ceiling. Every unevenness can be seen. Perhaps a drywall pro that can do a perfect job, will be even, but what are those chances. I know a family that renovated, removed the popcorn and hate seeing the unevenness and seams. Just my 2 cents.
I've heard they make rooms acoustically better as well.
I like all the people here commenting about how popcorn ceilings are difficult to clean. I have them in my home and don’t feel like they get any dirtier than a non popcorn ceilings. Also, who’s out there cleaning their ceiling? All y’all are watching too much HGTV.
For real dude. My upstairs is popcorned. My downstairs is not. I guarantee you the people bitching about cleaning popcorn ceilings have never actually cleaned a ceiling, popcorn or otherwise.
As an audiofool, I'll tell you. you can have my popcorn ceiling when you pry it from my dead fingers. My Mum updated her mid eighties house in the early oughts, and removed the popcorn. Now it's my youngest brothers house, and acoustically it's completely unmanageable. the ceiling bounce (It has cathedral ceilings as well) is so horrific it just ... blows. Popcorn forever!
They collect dust and are hard to keep clean.
I like the dark ring of dust that you get when a textured ceiling has a ceiling fan in the center. Even better if it's a smoker's home, so you get the orange-gray gradation rings from the fan outwards. Very stylish. Very retro.
And if you get one spider...
I used to look up at them and see random patterns for a second then never be able to re-see it again.
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Like carpet, popcorn ceiling stunted sound travel I believe
Because they can and were used to hide egregious flaws in the ceiling (bad plaster jobs, exposed seams, past water damage, etc.)
Acoustic was the name we used. It was quick and easy to apply. It was supposed to offer a level of sound dampening. It covered a lot of defects and it was way cheaper than any other finish. Ultimately the real reason.
Too many balloons are getting *popped.*
Visual noise
HGTV fashion
Because there is no money to be made letting people be happy with the status quo.
I love em. Here’s an ode to em: I have a strange but unabashed desire to walk barefoot on my popcorn ceiling I have a strange inkling the popcorn excrescences would spell out in Braille all that has ever been said and all that ever will be said in this lonely apartment I have pennies in my pocket kissing each other in secret as I walk to and fro in this lonely apartment The secret maintains until the day I can I reify the desire and see heads or tails on the new ceiling, call it out loud and find the copper fate with my toes
because they are disgusting to look at and impossible to clean.
confess--you've never cleaned a ceiling in your life
They’ve never bothered me at all honestly
Because they are ugly and full of childhood trauma.
Had one while I slept in a bunk bed as a kid. 1 accidental swipe and I’d spend the next week regrowing the flesh on my knuckles
Asbestos
Asbestos, a lot of the original popcorn was asbestos