If it has never been painted, you can often scrape it off.

I lived in an apartment with 14' ceilings where the kitchen was in a lofted area and had a ceiling height of 6'7". Because the medallion had been removed and there was other damage, the entire ceiling had been coated with sanded paint (and painted over and over until it looked like a popcorn ceiling)

We covered it with 3/8" drywall and even at 6'7" I could not really perceive the loss of height. In fact, it actually looked higher because it was not as textured and complex.

If you are going to buy/install drywall, tape, paint, etc, then I would just rip out the old ceiling and start fresh. Maybe you can do the demo yourself if you want to save money.

That *really* depends upon what is above it. You could end up with a filthy mess rather than just a white dusty mess.

Where I live, depending on when the house was constructed some of the stipple work contains asbestos. (Our neighbours ran in that and what a nightmare for them). We just left it alone and drywalled over it. We have standard 8' ceilings in the bedrooms (higher elsewhere) but we didn't even miss the height. Stipple ceilings are a real light-sucker and when you have plain ceilings light reflects better.

I had my dining room walls drywalled last week for the same reason. It looks beautiful and I so happy I had it done. I don't miss the half inch at all and I'm sure you won't miss it on a ceiling. Go for it.

Thanks everyone, particularly about the reassurance re: the .5" ceiling drop.

I'd like to rip out the ceiling and bump it up, but that will be expensive, I'm told complicated, and as Pal suggests, very messy. We have an attic above the ceiling, with cellulose insulation.

blfenton - ah yes, asbestos. We just had an asbestos/hazardous materials expert in this past week to assess the attic space (as we will be replacing old pot lights in the ceiling). Happily we don't have any vermiculite and no one has been concerned about the stippled ceilings. It is just paint. He took a sample of the drywall too, but isn't concerned about it.

So drywall is the best bet I guess?

Thanks again.

If it's not asbestos I'd scrape/sand it off and create a smooth ceiling. You're still going to have a mess with drywall.

Scraping and sanding would be much worse than drywalling. I researched this before having my dining room done. To get it off, you have to score the surface, soak the surface, and then try to get your scraper underneath the stipple. When it's off, you will have gouges from scraping. Sounded too hard for my walls. Sounds impossible for a ceiling.

That's right. Then you have to mud over it. We've had it done in all rooms except one.

In our last house we had normal height ceilings and did put the thinnest drywall over the popcorn. I never noticed the ceiling looking any lower and sure did like the flat drywall ceilings!

Thanks everyone, I will go ahead with the drywall I think. Our contractor will be doing the work, I suppose I can give him the choice. I suspect that the drywall will be less labour intensive than scrapping though.

We just diy-ed popcorn removal in son's kitchen and combo dining living area. We bought a big hand pump sprayer to spray the water on. The popcorn came off very easy and that part was fast. Very Very messy though! Parts had to be joint compound skim coated and sanded. I can't see how re-dry walling would be faster because the tape also is skim coated and sanded and there is the time it takes to put it up there. Maybe the issue is the age of the home and what's in the popcorn. I think dates before 1978 or 79 require all sorts of extra care and disposal laws which really can add to the cost when hiring a company for removal. For popcorn from 1980 on supposedly the hazardous stuff was taken out of the pop. The cost for removal is much less for 1980 on. We could have hired someone to remove son's popcorn and paint for $1,500 in my area of Florida. The people who do it for a living are very fast and have supplies/tools where it is not as messy (but still messy) as a diy job.