HGTV's Fixer To Fabulous Proves This Type Of Ceiling Should Be Left In The Past
When renovating your home, you don't have to rip everything out and install a completely new design, especially if there are areas worth keeping. Making small updates around the house can have a significant effect without making everything look different. One HGTV couple that loves making minimal yet eye-catching changes is Jenny and Dave Marrs of "Fixer to Fabulous." They always work to keep many of the home's original designs and update anything that needs a refresh. However, without a second thought, they will always remove one feature: popcorn ceilings.
Popcorn ceilings became a popular ceiling type in the 1930s due to their soundproofing abilities, covering of eyesore blemishes, and easy application. Still, they don't live up to the modern look most folks are going for, and they're difficult to keep clean. In addition, many homes built between the 1930s and the 1990s with popcorn ceilings could contain asbestos.
Even though popcorn ceilings aren't the worst ceiling type, Jenny Marrs claimed they give a home a dated look during her recap of "Fixer to Fabulous" Season 4, Episode 6, "Family Farmhouse Restoration," on the Dave and Jenny Marrs blog. Instead, they swapped out the popcorn ceiling for sheetrock, vastly changing the home's appearance.
How Jenny Marrs modernizes popcorn ceilings
Jenny Marrs scrapes and paints popcorn ceilings to make them feel more modern. On Dave and Jenny Marrs' blog, Jenny recapped "Fixer to Fabulous" Season 5, Episode 15, "A Worldwide Home Renovation," where they updated the living room's popcorn ceiling, transforming it from a dark, dated space to a brighter one. She stated, "New wood flooring and a fresh coat of paint to the ceiling and walls went a long way in making the space much lighter and brighter." The living room had two massive windows on the wall with a brick fireplace, which allowed an exponential amount of sunlight inside, but it looked cluttered and small. However, scraping the popcorn ceiling and painting it and all the walls white made the space appear bigger.
The smooth, flat surface that replaced the popcorn-textured surface elongated the entire ceiling, making the room look wider. It gave it a more modern touch, allowing the focus to be centered around other areas, such as the windows, tile fireplace, and flooring. Plus, smooth ceilings are easier to clean and maintain, unlike popcorn ceilings, which get dirt and dust between the crevices. Furthermore, if you decide to change the ceiling's look, you can easily add beams or trim on a flat surface.
Jenny Marrs adds trim to bedrooms for extra details
On Season 3, Episode 12 of "Fixer to Fabulous," Jenny Marrs updated the ceiling in the main bedroom, taking it from drab to fab with trim. The original tray ceiling was replaced with a smooth ceiling and trim that gave the space character. Jenny wrote on her blog, "To help create an elegant main bedroom, we removed the old popcorn ceiling and added trim to give the illusion of a coffered design, a look that adds depth and dimension to this space." She did this by adding multiple long trim pieces along the longest side of the ceiling and connecting them with shorter trim pieces on the sides.
While she could have skipped adding the trim to the ceiling for a smoother look, the trim added flair to the space. There are various trim types that will improve the appearance of any room, but if you don't like the trim look all over the ceiling, opt for a tray ceiling, for which you install the trim around the ceiling to make it look taller. Depending on your design preferences, you can choose to change this feature to have different materials, such as wood paneling, ceiling tiles, or textures like skip trowel, or you can leave it as is.