Popcorn Ceiling Removal
Tested, scraped, skim-coated and repainted for a flat modern ceiling.
Learn More about Popcorn Ceiling Removal →Service Area · North York, ON
Drywall Contractor in North York
Popcorn ceilings, basement finishing and drywall repair in North York’s post-war bungalows, backsplits and semis. Roughly fifteen minutes from our Scarborough shop.
Most of North York went up between the early 1950s and the late 1970s, and that single fact predicts most of the work we do there. Bungalows, backsplits and semis from that period share a specific set of problems, and they are not the problems you get in a new subdivision.
The two calls we take most often are popcorn ceiling removal and basement finishing. Stipple was the standard ceiling finish for that entire build period, so a very large share of North York ceilings still carry it. And those basements were poured as storage rather than as living space, which is why finishing one here involves more than it does in a house built with the basement already in mind.
The third regular call is repair in the oldest stock, where the walls are plaster over wood lath rather than board and a patch has to be built up rather than simply filled.
Post-War Housing
What a Post-War North York House Actually Needs
These come up on nearly every North York job. None of them are unusual, but all of them are easier to plan for than to discover halfway through.
- Stipple ceilings and asbestos
- Ceiling texture applied before the mid-1980s can contain asbestos, and North York has a great deal of housing from exactly that window. A test costs very little next to the cost of getting it wrong, so we recommend having the ceiling tested before any scraping begins and we would rather push a start date than skip it.
- Basement headroom
- Joists in a 1950s or 1960s bungalow often sit at seven feet or a little under. Once a ceiling goes in you are into the numbers that decide whether a room counts as habitable, so headroom gets measured at the quote rather than discovered later.
- Ducts and bulkheads
- Old trunk ducting usually runs the length of the basement, right where you want the ceiling to be. Boxing it into a deliberate bulkhead reads as a design choice. Leaving it to be worked around never does.
- Steel posts and beams
- Mid-century basements almost always have a steel post or two mid-span. They can be framed and boarded into a column or the end of a half wall, but they cannot be moved without an engineer.
- Plaster over lath
- The oldest stock is plaster on wood lath, which is thicker than modern board. A patch has to be built up to match, or the repair shows as a ridge under any raking light.
- New work meeting old
- Willowdale and Bayview see a lot of additions and second storeys. The awkward part is never the new framing, it is the joint where a new wall meets a sixty-year-old one that is not quite plumb.
We would rather raise all of this at the quote than send you a change order later.
What We Do Most in North York
- Popcorn ceiling removalTested first, then scraped, skim-coated flat and repainted.
- Basement finishingFraming, insulation, board, taping, flooring and paint from one crew.
- Bulkheads and boxingDucting, beams and posts framed in so the finished space looks intentional.
- Plaster repairPatches built up to the thickness of the surrounding wall rather than just filled.
- Boarding over ceilingsNew board over an existing ceiling where scraping is not the right call.
- Full interior repaintPrep, prime and two coats, ceilings included once they are smooth.
How a North York Basement Job Runs
- Measure the headroom firstBefore anything else. It decides the ceiling approach and, in some houses, whether the room can legally be a bedroom at all.
- Plan around the mechanicalsDucts, the panel, the water shutoff and the cleanout all have to stay reachable. That plan gets drawn before framing rather than worked around after it.
- Frame and insulateWalls held off the concrete and insulated to suit a below-grade space.
- Board, tape and sandMulti-coat taping with real drying time between coats, then sanded flat and checked under a raking light before paint.
- Floor and finishVinyl plank flooring over a checked subfloor, then trim and two coats of paint.
Recent Work
Basement and Framing Photos
Photos are from jobs across our service area. We have not labelled them by city, because we would rather show you the work than claim a postcode.
Basement Layout Taped
Primed and Ready
Framing and Insulation
Keep Exploring
Services We Run Most in North York
Basement Finishing
Unfinished basements turned into livable square footage.
Learn More about Basement Finishing →Drywall Repair & Patching
Plaster and drywall patched level with the wall around it.
Learn More about Drywall Repair & Patching →Common Questions
North York Drywall FAQs
We strongly recommend one. Texture applied before the mid-1980s can contain asbestos, and a large share of North York housing dates from exactly that period. A test is inexpensive. Scraping an untested ceiling spreads fibres through the whole house and turns a small job into a very expensive one.
Usually, but the approach changes and the answer has to come from a tape measure rather than a phone call. We measure at the quote and tell you honestly what the space can be. If the height will not support a legal bedroom, you will hear that from us before you have spent anything.
Box it into a bulkhead, in a line that looks deliberate rather than apologetic. Re-routing duct is occasionally worth doing, but it is an HVAC job with a real cost attached, and most of the time a well-placed bulkhead is the better trade.
Patch, in almost every case. Plaster over lath is thicker than modern drywall, so the repair is built up to match the surrounding surface and feathered out wide. Tearing out a sound plaster wall is usually money spent for no gain.
It depends on the size and how much has to be boxed in, so the honest answer comes with the quote. What we can say is that the taping stage sets the pace: mud has to dry between coats, and rushing that is exactly what produces the cracked seams you see a year later.