 you spray the ceiling to sort of saturate the popcorn, and then you take a wide spackle blade, like as wide as one you can find, and you sort of gently start peeling away at the popcorn ceiling, at the popcorn texture, I should say, from the ceiling. And that generally does a pretty good job, because if you've ever tried to paint it, if you don't have the right roller, when it gets wet, it starts to peel away from the ceiling. So by getting it wet, you're being able to remove it. You just want to make sure with your blade or your scraper