Design dilemma: Popcorn should be eaten... not sprayed on the ceiling

So...you are house hunting...you don't have many requirements...but an important one is that there be no "popcorn" on the ceilings.  It's not too much to ask.  But, then you walk into a house that has the floor plan you have always wanted.  You look up slowly and see a wealth of popcorn.  And suddenly you think..."No problem...we'll scrape them!"

You buy the house, and realize that maybe you had more requirements than you thought.  And suddenly every single piece of flooring is being replaced, every vertical surface is being painted...and as the move-in day approaches, you realize the popcorn will have to stay  : (

Until...one day, you are fixing breakfast and you look up at the hated ceiling...and you see something that you hate even more- a leak from your master bathroom is soaking the ceiling above the stove.  Great.

And once, where there was a nasty popcorn ceiling, there is now an even nastier hole in your nasty popcorn ceiling.  Yeah.

So, the choice of whether to leave your ceiling with the dreaded popcorn, or to scrape it has now been taken away...the week before Thanksgiving.  Wonderful.

You call some people...get some estimates...make a decision...hire a crew and set the date for three days later.  You can actually wrap your head around this, and think "This is going to be good.  We can get it over with, have one more thing marked off our list." And then the contractor emails and informs you that you will need to remove EVERYTHING from the lower level of your house- the furniture, the pictures, the drapes, the rugs, the light fixtures...everything.

As your house begin to look as if someone has robbed you blind...

You start to think that maybe this was a bad decision...a very bad decision.  All of your belongings, that used to reside downstairs, are now living in the garage.  You have resigned yourself to the fact that you and your family will be eating your meals off of a card table.  You will be preparing your meals out of a mini-fridge.  And you will live in less than half the space you normally do for a week.  Perfect.

Your dog doesn't seem to be happy about this decision either.

Early Monday morning, the contractor arrives and your house begins to be bathed in plastic. 

And before your eyes...your house becomes a "kill room" off of "Dexter". Nice.

As soon as the plastic is up... everyone in your household gets sick...including the dog.  Now you are living in half the space with the germs sealed in with, you in your plastic bubble.

It feels as if you are living in a snow globe...all of the "snow" resting lightly on the ground waiting to be shaken up.

Every time you attempt to go downstairs, you have to squeeze through this tiny slit in the plastic- a procedure that strangely reminds me of Jim Carrey's exit from the hippo in the second "Ace Ventura" movie.  It is absolutely impossible to do it gracefully. Tragic.

And then, you can see a little glimmer...very dim, but still there...

And then one day...you come home...after escaping for half a day...and you realize... it was absolutely worth it!

This immense, flat, white space completes you in some small way.  And you smile and instantly forget that the whole process absolutely sucked (somewhat like childbirth- just kidding...kinda).   

I wonder when we can do the upstairs  : )