If you’ve got a stomp texture on your ceiling, then whoever created it did so by spreading a coat of drywall joint compound and utilizing a stomp brush to make the texture. If the ceiling is painted white, drywall finishers sometimes leave texture unpainted, and if they do, you can remove it from scrape and wetting it. When the texture has a coat of paint, however, you normally have to sand the texture off since the paint seals out the water. Another method that does not increase as much unhealthy dust may work on your ceiling, tough.
Cover the floor with plastic sheeting, and hang plastic from the doorways. Wear a dust mask, goggles and protective clothing. Taking away the texture is going to make a mess regardless of whether you have to sand it off.
Scrape the ceiling using a hard-bristle push broom. If there are just a couple of coats of paint, then the broom should have the ability to earn large enough scrape marks to permit water to penetrate into the texture material.
Fill a garden sprayer with water, pump it up and spray the ceiling thoroughly. Give the water 20 minutes to penetrate and soften the texture.
Scrape off the softened texture using a drywall knife. Maintaining a bucket under the knife as you scrape will prevent the texture from dropping around the plastic and potentially getting on the carpet, but it may be tricky to do while standing on a stepladder. If so, enlist a helper to hold the bucket for you.
Let the ceiling dry after you’ve scraped off the bulk of the texture, then sand off the deposits with a pole sander and 120-grit sandpaper.