Try water, goof-off, acetone, and lacquer thinner, in that order. From weakest to strongest. Use a soft cotton rag so as not to scratch the chrome (or other) finish. If you need to use steel wool, use it dry and only on chrome, not brass, ORB or nickels. Casey

if it was me... I would try heating the remain pipe with a torch then putting ice on the inside.. then try to unscrew the remaining copper pipe.. try cutting the copper pipe with a saw. gently. more to score it then cut thru.. then pry the copper towards the insides..then unscrew. if that fails..open the wall up and replace the pipe.. -dkenny

I prefer no texture on the ceiling. We're mid-reno right now. Tore out the plaster ceiling because we were running so much lighting that it made sense. Our plaster has a very random figure-8-ish texture. Very random. I know because I spent a ton of time when we first moved in patching small areas that needed attention. But, I digress. We have 8 foot ceilings and we are keeping the ceiling untextured. The rest of the walls (now a mixture of original plaster walls and some drywall) are going to have texture. We are having discussions with our guy right now trying to get him to get the texture right...did I mention that we have a random figure-8? Anyway, do you have texture on the rest of the walls? If you do and you're trying to match it, it might be difficult to do so. You don't want to go with a high-gloss paint for the ceiling - you'll see every variation of the ceiling. We opted for a satin finish for the ceiling...it's still got a bit of sheen, but not really glossy...I've found satin easy to clean (unlike a flat or even in some cases, an eggshell) if I wind up with a tomato sauce pop up on the ceiling. We're doing cabinets to the ceiling and we're hoping that gives a illusion of higher ceilings. We're thinking of doing a glass tile that has long thin strips, and if we run it vertical instead of horizontal, it will also help with the illusion of higher ceilings. Another thing that I think helps, is keeping simpler lines. I think that the more ornate things are (fancy countertop edges, complex cabinet door styles, etc) from the floor to eye level, the more your eye gets drawn to them and gets stuck from traveling upward.

Looks like knockdown. Or, as they say in the brochures, Spanish lace. Anyway, the only way to get rid of this is to hire a crew to skim coat it. Looks like they need to fix at least one seam as well. Good luck!