# Question re. painting walls & ceiling with smooth trim alongside popcorn ceiling *pic



## starrysim (Jul 11, 2012)

*Question re. painting walls & ceiling with smooth trim alongside popcorn ceiling *pic*

This is how the ceiling is done in our house - there is a popcorn ceiling, but the texture doesn't extend all the way to edge of the wall. Instead there is a ~3" edge along the outside of the ceiling that's smooth. Right now this smooth strip is the same off-white colour as the walls. We are about to paint the walls. How should we go about painting the strip? Do we paint the strip the same colour as the wall? Do we paint it white like the ceiling? If anyone can provide pics or a link that would help, that would be great too. Is this common or rare to see in houses?

thanks!!


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## princelake (Feb 19, 2012)

putting a border like this is very common. i see more with a 4" border and many with large radious curves on the inside corners. typically the border is painted the wall color. i've paint lots of rooms with this. if you are painting the ceiling and walls paint the ceiling first then cut in your wall color. its actually pretty easy to cut in on the ceiling. start at one end and look down the ceiling and run your brush along beside the texture using it like a guide.


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## starrysim (Jul 11, 2012)

Thanks for the reply. So would you tape along the edge of the popcorn, or just use a brush and run it along that edge? Thankfully our wall colour is not too dark.


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## princelake (Feb 19, 2012)

your probably not going to get tape on the texture and if you do there will be gaps where the paint will run under it and theres a chance of the texture pulling off when you pull the tape. usually guys texture spray the ceiling then take a taping knife 3",4" 5" or whatever size they like and run along the corner of the ceiling and scrap the fresh texture off. theres usually a bit of build from running the knife. this makes a decent line to cut to. if you havent done alot of cutting in and uncomfortable practice cutting in before you roll out your ceiling.


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## ltd (Jan 16, 2011)

in my part of the country i never see popcorn ceilings:no: to me this seems odd:001_unsure:.i would paint complete ceiling and border flat white and cut in the wall as normal:yes:.but that's just me:thumbsup:


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## princelake (Feb 19, 2012)

a large portion of the people in my city are italian, i see this in pretty well every italian home.


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## chrisn (Dec 23, 2007)

ltd said:


> in my part of the country i never see popcorn ceilings:no: to me this seems odd:001_unsure:.i would paint complete ceiling and border flat white and cut in the wall as normal:yes:.but that's just me:thumbsup:


In almost 30 years,I have never seen that. I would paint the ceiling the ceiling and the walls the walls.


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## Brushjockey (Mar 8, 2011)

Starry and Prince- I also have never seen that- where are you both located?

And Prince- what would be the purpose of doing that , or is it purely style? does the texture guy run a width of 2" tape around the perimeter before spraying texture, then pull it?

Inquiring minds want to know!


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## princelake (Feb 19, 2012)

I'm in sault ste. Marie ontario and its a very common practice here. When you spray your texture on you have a guy go right behind you with a mudding knife scrapping off the texture to make the border while its still wet. Guys will also take let's say a 8" knife and put it in the corners and turn it to make a radious. Its all for style. Painting the border is laso just a style instead of a crown moulding. When the guy scraps off the wet texture it leaves a bit of a build up of texture making it very easy to paint. It looks better then texturing to the walls nd then cutting up to the texture making a rougher line


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## starrysim (Jul 11, 2012)

I'm located in Brampton, Ontario. This is a relatively new house (<2 yrs) and the builder is Aspen Ridge if that helps.

Thanks so much for all the responses. At this points, I've gotten so many conflicting ideas from everywhere i've asked, so I think it's just up to us what we want to do with it. I think we may paint the strip the same colour as the ceiling, just to keep things simple. Otherwise we would have to find paint to match the current colour of the popcorn part - and it's not pure white, because that was our original thought and we tried white ceiling paint, which didn't work at all, it's too bright white. It's our first time painting our own house, so we're not exactly highly skilled. LOL


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## AGWhitehouse (Jul 1, 2011)

starrysim said:


> It's our first time painting our own house, so we're not exactly highly skilled. LOL


The best part about that is if you screw up your first attempt (or realize you hate the color) just paint it again and all will be hidden...


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## starrysim (Jul 11, 2012)

AGWhitehouse said:


> The best part about that is if you screw up your first attempt (or realize you hate the color) just paint it again and all will be hidden...


Oh no, don't say that! I just want to get this done and never have to paint again! And we got samples to test the paint colours beforehand, so all should be well in that respect  Good thing we did too, because we got 3 samples for the family room before we found one we actually liked.


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## Janeshs (Jul 18, 2012)

*painting walls & ceiling with smooth trim alongside popcorn ceiling*

I read on another site that the strip of wall color painted on the edges of the ceiling is used on 8' ceilings to create the illusion of more height on the ceiling. I've never seen this in person, and appreciated the picture! I plan to use crown molding, so I won't be doing this idea myself.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

30 years plus and I also have never once seen it done this way.
Paint the ceiling and then the wall to differant colors or add crown to cover up that untextured area.


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## stoner529 (Nov 12, 2010)

Ive never seen it. however, if a guy on here has seen many of them, i would listen to his advice on what to do over someone that hasnt seen it.


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## princelake (Feb 19, 2012)

2 days ago i was in a house and i look up and theres another one like this. heres a pic and the ceiling has those radious corners i was talking about. hoping my picture works, i took a quick pic with my blackberry


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## Expert Paint (Jul 24, 2012)

sounds like a fad that came from lazy drywall guys not wanting to mask straight lines when they shoot popcorn ceilings


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## princelake (Feb 19, 2012)

when doing the border just mask the walls like you normally do. it works out really good with 2 guys. one guy spraying and the other guy loading the hopper and going around with a taping knife scraping off the texture to make the border. i swear every second house in town has ceilings this style. it was more of a late 80s early 90s thing to do but lots of ppl still like it and i have redone houses in ceilings to match what they had before after water damage. A buddy of mine gutted the house he bought and had me do all the new drywall and he had me do this type of ceiling. i think alot of the older style will be coming back. i think wallpaper will make a big come back and carpet!


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