We hired Pasadena Elite Painting to repaint our living room, kitchen, and hallway. The lines around the trim and ceilings came out incredibly clean, and the new colors transformed the entire space. Everything was left neat when the work was finished.
Ceiling Painting in Pasadena, CA
Pasadena Elite Painting is Los Angeles County's trusted expert in ceiling painting, specializing in stain blocking, spray and back-roll application and popcorn texture removal. We offer coffered and beamed ceiling work in period homes.
Our team provides even film build across a whole plane, delivering flat, shadow-free ceilings for homes and fast overnight coverage for both residential and commercial projects. Fully licensed (CSLB #585047), insured and bonded, we handle everything from one bedroom ceiling to an entire second storey.
From blocking a nicotine or water stain so it never ghosts back through to keeping a wet edge across a twenty-foot span, our team handles every detail. Serving Pasadena, Sierra Madre, San Gabriel and Arcadia, we ensure fast, efficient service and deliver reliable, professional and uniform results on every ceiling painting project.
- Stains blocked, not covered
- Sprayed and back-rolled for even build
- Popcorn removal handled safely
- Licensed, insured and bonded
Reviews
What clients say about our ceiling work
The painters took great care around our furniture, flooring, and fixtures. Our walls and ceilings look fantastic, and there were no drips or messy edges left behind.
The ceiling painting came out smooth and even. The room feels much cleaner and brighter now.
Great work on our doors, baseboards, and interior trim. Every line looks crisp and precise.
Pasadena Elite Painting transformed our older home with fresh interior and exterior paint. The preparation work was thorough, the color coverage was consistent, and the finished surfaces look outstanding. The entire property now feels well maintained and updated.
Pasadena Elite Painting did a beautiful job repainting the interior of our home. The rooms look brighter, cleaner, and completely refreshed.
Excellent painting and careful preparation. Our house looks amazing!
Our home’s exterior looks brand new again. The finish is smooth, even, and professionally done.
01
Ceiling types and how each one is coated
A ceiling is the least forgiving surface in the house. It is lit from the side by every window, it is seen as one uninterrupted plane, and there is nowhere for a lap mark to hide.
| Ceiling | Where it turns up | Method | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smooth drywall | Postwar and modern homes and remodels | Sprayed and back-rolled in flat ceiling paint | Every joint and fastener under raking light, so finish level matters |
| Orange peel or knockdown | 1970s onward tract housing across the valley | Sprayed, back-rolled to work paint into the texture | Shadowed low spots if it is sprayed without back-rolling |
| Popcorn or acoustic texture | 1950s to early 1980s | Removal and refinish, or careful spray if it is staying | Pre-1980 texture may contain asbestos and must be tested first |
| Lime plaster over lath | Pre-1940 Pasadena homes | Repair and secure first, then roll or spray in flat | Hollow sections, lath cracking, and old distemper that must come off |
| Beamed and coffered | Craftsman and Spanish Revival living and dining rooms | Hand cut and brushed, often two finishes and two sheens | Slow work, and the beam finish is a separate decision from the field |
| Suspended tile grid | Offices, retail suites and medical space | Tiles sprayed off the grid, grid coated separately | Warped or stained tiles that should be replaced rather than coated |
02
Popcorn ceiling removal
The most requested ceiling job in Pasadena, and the one with the most conditions attached. Texture applied before the early 1980s can contain asbestos, and that has to be settled before anything is scraped.
Test before touching it
On any ceiling that could predate the early 1980s, a sample goes for testing. If it comes back positive the work belongs to a licensed abatement contractor, not to a painting crew, and we will tell you that plainly rather than scraping first and asking later.
Contain the room
Floors and walls sheeted, doorways sealed, fixtures removed or bagged. Popcorn removal is a wet, messy process and containment is the difference between one room being affected and the whole house needing cleaning.
Wet and scrape
The texture is misted and left to soften, then scraped off in sections. Wetting keeps the dust down and makes the material release cleanly instead of tearing the paper face of the board underneath.
Repair what the texture was hiding
Popcorn was frequently used to avoid finishing the ceiling properly. Once it is off you usually find unfinished joints, exposed tape and fastener heads. Those get taped, coated and sanded, often to a full skim.
Texture or leave smooth
Most clients want smooth, which means a skim coat and careful sanding. Some prefer a light orange peel, which is faster and more forgiving of the ceiling underneath. Both are legitimate, and the choice affects the labour.
Prime and coat
A stain-blocking primer over the whole ceiling, since old texture often hides staining, then flat ceiling paint sprayed and back-rolled for an even plane.
03
Stains, sheen and raking light
Three things make ceilings go wrong, and none of them is the colour.
Stains that come back
Water, smoke and nicotine staining will bleed straight through a water-based ceiling paint, sometimes within days. They need a stain-blocking shellac or oil-based blocker over the affected area first. And the leak needs fixing, because a blocked stain over an active leak is a delaying tactic, not a repair.
Why ceilings are flat
Flat ceiling paint scatters light instead of reflecting it, which is what lets a large plane read as uniform. Any sheen at all on a ceiling picks out every joint, fastener and roller lap. The one common exception is a bathroom, where a scrubbable matte with a mildewcide is worth the trade-off.
Raking light
A ceiling next to a large window is lit almost parallel to its surface, and that light finds everything. Where that is the situation, the honest answer is a higher finish level or a skim coat before painting, because no amount of care with the roller will hide a joint that the light is deliberately picking out.
Period ceilings: beams, coffers and plaster
Pasadena has a great many ceilings that are not simply flat planes. Craftsman dining rooms with box beams, Spanish Revival rooms with exposed timber, coffered living rooms and plaster with decorative mouldings all take hand work rather than a spray gun. Beams are frequently a different finish and sheen from the field between them, sometimes stained rather than painted, and the order of operations matters: field first, beams second, with the cut line held by hand. This is slow, careful work, and it overlaps with historic home restoration painting.
04
Frequently asked questions about ceiling painting
Can popcorn ceilings be painted instead of removed?
They can, and it is a legitimate option if the texture is intact and you are not bothered by it. It has to be sprayed rather than rolled, because a roller drags the texture off in lumps, and the texture drinks a surprising amount of material. If the ceiling has never been painted, wetting it with paint can also loosen it, so a test area comes first.
How do I know if my ceiling texture contains asbestos?
By testing it, which is the only way. Texture applied before the early 1980s is the concern, and age alone is not proof either way. A small sample goes to a laboratory and the result decides whether this is a painting job or an abatement job. We will not scrape an untested ceiling of that era.
Do ceilings need two coats?
Usually yes, particularly over a colour change, a repair or any stain-blocked area. A single coat on a large plane almost always shows uneven build once daylight crosses it. Where a ceiling is simply being freshened in the same colour over sound existing paint, one well-applied coat can be enough, and we will say so rather than selling a second.
Should the ceiling be the same white as the trim?
Rarely. Trim whites are usually brighter and cooler and are applied in a sheen, so the same colour on a flat ceiling reads differently anyway. A ceiling white with a little warmth or a touch of the wall colour tends to sit more comfortably in a room, especially in the older Pasadena houses where the daylight is warm and the trim is often not a pure white either.
Can you paint ceilings without moving all my furniture?
Mostly. Furniture is moved to the centre of the room and covered, which gives access to the perimeter and to the field above. Very large or fragile pieces can stay where they are under protection. What we do need is clear floor space to work from, so anything that can leave the room makes for a faster and cleaner job.
Why does my ceiling look patchy after a previous repaint?
Almost always uneven film build, usually from rolling a large plane without keeping a wet edge, or from spraying without back-rolling so the paint never got worked into the texture. It can also be flashing where a repair was not primed. The remedy is priming any porous areas and recoating the whole plane in one continuous pass.
Do you paint commercial ceilings and tile grids?
Yes. Suspended tile ceilings in offices, retail and medical suites are handled by spraying tiles off the grid where they are worth keeping and replacing the warped or stained ones, with the grid coated separately. That work usually runs overnight so the space trades normally, and it is covered on the office and retail interior painting page.
05
Related painting services
Ceiling work is usually booked alongside one of these.
- Interior House Painting
- Drywall Repair & Painting
- Wallpaper Removal & Repainting
- Historic Home Restoration Painting
- Apartment Turnover Painting
- Office & Retail Interior Painting
Painting service areas
Ceiling work across every community we cover around Pasadena.
Get the ceiling done before the walls
Tell us what the ceiling is doing: staining, texture you want gone, or simply tired. We will tell you what it needs.
- Free written estimate
- Texture tested before any scraping
- Licensed, insured and bonded