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If your popcorn ceiling is asbestos-free and you are ready for a new look, painting is an option. As long as there is no flaking or other wear, a new coat of paint might be just the thing to refresh the old ceiling. The best way to paint a popcorn ceiling is to use either a paint sprayer or a thick roller to cover the popcorn texture fully. (Do not forget to dust it off beforehand!)

“Note that if you eventually want to remove the popcorn ceiling, a painted ceiling is a labor-intensive job to remove and will cost more,” says Bob Tschudi. “Once painted, the process of removing the popcorn ceiling requires physical scraping as opposed to a spray-and-scrape approach. It’s very labor-intensive, and thus more costly.”

Assuming you have all of the supplies and materials needed to prep and paint, it will likely be less expensive to paint the room yourself, as it will only cost you the price of paint, which costs an average of $15 to $60 per gallon. Hiring a professional painter to paint a room can cost from $950 to $3,000, or $2 to $6 per square foot, depending on prep and materials involved. If you’re paying for labor only, expect to pay interior painters $20 to $50 per hour.

Most spray paint is fully dry after 24 hours, but knowing when the spray paint is dry depends on the type of dry paint criteria. Surface dry is a surface that’s dry enough for you to apply another coat of paint. Touch dryness is a little dryer than surface dryness and will feel dry if you gently touch it, but it’s really wet underneath the initial touch. Hard dry feels fully dry but can dent or smudge upon extra pressure. Thoroughly dry paint is completely dry. 

In most cases, you’ll need two coats of paint to ensure proper coverage. If you put down a coat of primer first, you could get away with a single coat of paint, but you’ll likely still need two coats. The only exception would be if you’re painting with a light color over a dark color, in which case you may need three or four coats of paint to ensure the dark color doesn’t show through the new paint.