Beadboard ceiling

bigboyjoel

My name is Joel Trausch. The ONLY Joel Trausch. Ask me to be your friend!

bigboyjoel

Now that I look, I don't have any of the ceiling pics on my facebook. Give me a day to get them on there.

Helpful hints: It doesn't matter the quality of the beadboard. If your celing is imperfect like mine which is far from even and straight, do yourself a favor an buy the cheap pine wood they sell at Menard's, Lowe's, etc. That is your best bet. It's easy to install and flexible. You can paint it before you install it or paint it after like I did. The hardest thing was putting it together and nailing it to the ceiling. That sucked so bad, it's like installing hardwood floor but on the ceiling. I suggest using a painter scaffold so you can walk the length of the room on it and you're not constantly up and down from the ladder. The scaffolding can be purchased for like $50 bucks and can be used for other projects. You will thank me later. Also, I nailed mine (2 inch with Craftsman air nailer , others glue. I used nails so it can expand a bit between seasons. Use a 1/4 to 1/2 gap arround the perimeter of the room to allow for expannsion from the heat of the cooking ovens and whatnot. I put up crown so it covered the gap. Even with no crown, it's still going to look cool and nobody will question it. Everyone that has come into the kitchen has no idea I added the ceiling and they always say it looks like it came with the house. It's hands down the best thing that I did for that kitchen even though it's unnoticed by alot of people.

rick42wood

One thing you might want to check when deciding which direction to put the boards up is to make sure everything is square. In alot of old houses the trueness of the walls can be out by quite a bit. (I have found) So if you have one wall that is not parallel or square with another wall, the direction of the boards on the ceiling could make this flaw very noticeable. You would want the ends of the boards against the non-square wall. I recently did a bathroom project and found one wall an inch out in 8 feet. If I ran the boards parallel to this wall I would have ended up with a triangular sliver against the other wall which would have been very obvious because of the reference to the lines on the boards.
If everything is square, running the boards parallel to the long wall will make the room appear bigger. Parallel to the short wall will make the room appear smaller. (depending on where you enter the room)