The popcorn/acoustical ceiling at my home is getting yellow.I want to repaint it to a bright white.Talked to the guys at the big home centers and they have told me to use a roller.Can i use a roller without removing some of the texture? I was thinking of buying a spray gun and doing it that way but the overspray seems too messy.Any suggestions?

Thanks

well, spraying it is the best way but it IS a mess.

they make special rollers with a huge nap for that type of ceiling.  I've used them as well.  They take some of the texture off with it, but it was never noticable.  You will use a HUGE amount of paint btw...

You can always scrape the old stuff off and re-shoot it.

Spray it with a HVLP sprayer.
cpermd

Thanks folk.I guess a roller will work.Going to try it next weekend.

I've got the same problem, but I think I'm going to strip it all off and recoat.  Adding that much paint (and it's A LOT) makes me think I'll have a problem with sagging ceilings (already a very mild problem in my 21 year-old house).  If I strip it first, I can re-anchor the drywall.

I would spray it, if rolled the popcorn can loosen and you will have places where it is no longer stuck to the ceiling. My wifes father tried to roll their ceiling and this happend. If you want to strip it take a garden sprayer and wet the ceiling down and use a flat scraper and it comes off easily, I did my ceilings like this and then had  hand brocade done on them.

Go down to the local tool rental place and get an airless sprayer. Airless sprayers work by compressing air and spraying it into the paint and turning it into a giant spray paint brush. The typical swath cut by the average airless sprayer is about 4 feet wide. Coverage is even and the control is awesome. Buy some killz primer and the paint of your choice. Get some visquene, masking tape, drop cloths, and a high volume output fan. A hat, overalls, and safety glasses would be nice too! Unless you plan on repainting the walls of the room(s), you will need to carefully mask them off. Same thing goes for all furniture, windows and floors. You can never cover things up too much. The reason that the ceiling is yellowing could be attributed to several factors such as cigarette smoke, age of material, etc... Unless you want the yellow to come through the new coat of paint, you need to prime the surface very well with killz or some other type of sealing, bad stuff killing primer. After the primer dries, you can paint the ceiling what ever the hell color you want to and the yellow will not come through the new paint. The advantage of the airless sprayer is the time you save applying the primer and paint along with the fact that it will not screw up the texture on your ceiling's surface. About 5 years ago my pops and I did our old house in about a day. It is about a 3800 sf house without the garage. That included set up, priming, painting, and clean up. This is the only way to go when you gotta paint a poop corned ceiling!