Ceilings Etcetera

Our new townhouse built in the 70’s still had 3 rooms with popcorn ceilings and one of them had water damage. I contacted 3 companies and ceilings etcetera was by far the most professional presentation. One vendor that I found on Unilocal actually would not return my call… just emailed me to send pictures and they would quote, and their quote and correspondence was very unprofessional. At Ceiling Etcertera, Mike, the owner, is very personable and his team showed up on time, completed on time, cleaned up their mess and did overall a good job. When I mentioned that there was some paint that peeled from walls from their taping, they had no problem fixing (good that I had the paint that matched). Also, mentioned that the sprayer from my hose was missing. He didn’t know what could have happened to it, but offered to replace with one of his! Overall great service and a good job. While he would accept credit card, there was an upcharge to cover the bank fee so I paid by check.

Did you know if you’re getting popcorn removed, it exposes what an awful condition your older home’s roof is in? You really aren’t paying for removal with him, it’s for the fixing of settling cracks /​holes from original builders where their hammers blew thru drywall /​re-​anchoring screws, etc. That was actually probably the best value besides asthetics.
Honestly we didn’t shop around, we got just the one quote. Mike’s Jersey accent coupled with his straight up attitude, pics and explanations of his work via his laptop demonstration did it for us. Though we chose to contract separately for painters (doing interior walls as well), Mike was more than willing to help with the sanding of the ceilings and the taping of the walls to be prepped for the painters coming after.
Whatever time he quotes you though, buffer for an addtl day. I wouldn’t rush them, so they can do their job. There was drywall plaster on the walls left afterwards, that I’ll have to clean up but it does rub off with a rag and water… but I don’t have a tall enough ladder for the vaulted ceilings, lucky I have painters coming in to help remove near the ceiling.
fyi There is ceiling dust EVERYWHERE, even in rooms we didn’t work on (no popcorn there luckily). I don’t know how to avoid it and not sure you can, but don’t be sold on the whole «don’t know I’m there afterwards» thing. I’d feel sorry for you if you’re doing this w/​furniture in the house.

There is nothing beautiful about popcorn ceilings, and this company understands that. Moving from a very new loft in the Bay Area to a older house in Scottsdale, I was horrified to see popcorn ceilings everywhere in the house. Well, Mike from Arizona Maintenance Corporation understands that, and saved us from staring at popcorn every night. The process is actually fascinating, but I won’t go into those details. What he did, was remove the popcorn from our ceilings, flatten the ceiling and then painted it… BEAUTIFUL. For our walls, he put some kind of mud on the walls to get rid of the texture… FLAT NOW… it’s great. His quote was less than his competitors and he did the unthinkable… he showed up ON TIME both days he came to my house… truly unique for AZ. Not only did he and his co-​worker do a great job, they were friendly.