10000 spit balls, wet oat meal, and 2 laws

What do you get when you combine all of the above? A Popcorn Textured ceiling and a BIG mess!

This weekend I thought I would tackle the job of patching Mackenzie's Popcorn ceiling, come on how hard could it be. So I went to Home Depot and bought 2 cans of spray on Popcorn texture and a can of primer.

I then went to work. First I cut away a square for me to repair. Second, I picked most of the crap that fell and put it in the garbage can. Next, I sprayed the square with primer. then waited 10 minutes and applied another coat of primer. Then I waited 30 minutes and went to work on applying the texture.

The can said to "curtain" off the area. At first I thought...psshhh, I don't need to do that. Then I thought...ya I better do that. So I curtained off the 2 squares I had prepared. Then the wife decided she wanted to watch. Then the "fun" began.

You are supposed to apply this stuff in 1/2 second spurts. So after shaking the can for what felt like 10 minutes I was ready to apply the texture. What came next is not for the faint of hurt. So I pulled the nozzle and out exploded what seems like what can only be described as this:

Invite 10,000 of your friends over. Then feed them a bunch of oatmeal, but while they are chewing the oatmeal have all 10,000 of them spit out their spit balls at the same time. All aiming at the same place. oh and you are standing right under that place. Now this is where the 2 laws come in. The first one is Newtons Law 2nd law, the one having to due with gravity. Remember you are applying this stuff to the ceiling. So gravity is working against you here. And then apply Newton's 3rd Law, the one about for every action there is an opposite.........anyway you get the point. When the "texture" HITS the ceiling some of it sticks, but apply Newton's 3rd Law to the rest. The stuff that didn't stick, bounced off the wall with the same force, and I do mean force, that was applied to it in the first place. OK so when the 3rd law ran it's course the 2 Law started kicking in. Gravity was taking it's toll on the stuff that did stick initially. So now the "texture" starts dropping from the ceiling. Lovely, and to top it all off, this stuff stinks!

So now I have 10,000 oatmeal covered spit balls either falling on me or bouncing off of the ceiling and hitting me. Oh what fun!

The good news is that on the 2nd square I learned some stuff. The stuff isn't as messy and works much better if you keep the nozzle further from the ceiling.

So after all of this I think I repaired Mackenzie's ceiling, I can't tell yet because the smell makes me sick, so I haven't looked yet. But it still smells 18 hours after being applied, and i have the window open.