Ceiling Prep

I'd like to tell myself that doing this ceiling treatment is easier than mudding, sanding and matching the existing texture on the ceiling, but unfortunately, it is not. BUT, it will look 100% better than the old dated texture. Before we could get started on the actual install, a lot of prep work took place.

The first thing we did was plan out our ceiling grid. We are doing this treatment in the entire main floor, so making the grid pattern look good throughout actually took a lot of work. We wanted to make sure none of our trim boards would be going through any existing lights, so some adjustments were necessary.

First we took measurements of the entire ceiling and the placement of all the recessed lighting and existing light fixtures. Then Luke created a layout in Google Sketchup (a free sketch-up program online). After many hours of tweaking and planning, it looked like this:

(Top-down view)

Next thing we did was mark all of the joists. The boards have to be screwed and nailed into something solid, not just drywall, so this step was crucial. We found the joist locations and then marked them all the wall across the ceiling with a chalk line.

Like so:

We confirmed the location the joists by screwing into the ceiling to see if we actually hit something. This left the ceiling a bit "hamburgered". But, we're covering it up anyway, so no worries.

Then we hit our first huge obstacle. We picked up sheets of 4' x 8' "brown board" or "masonite" to cover the whole ceiling and create the smooth surface. We got our first board up and we were making some final adjustments and the board came crashing down. !?!?!?! The board literally split apart from itself leaving some of the board on the ceiling and most falling on our heads. Obviously, the wrong material for this job.

Back to brainstorming.

After a lot of discussion and research we decided 1/4" drywall would be the best material for the new ceiling. Not only will it hold well on the ceiling, but all the screws can be patched and sanded down for a perfectly smooth surface. Also, it is easy to cut, and any mistakes that we make can be repaired quite easily. We should have chosen this first...but, live and learn...

Once we actually got the correct material, installing the boards wasn't too bad. Time consuming, but we feel confident that it will hold up and look great. The only truly tricky part was getting the boards up over the stairs. You don't want to know how we did that...no really, you don't.

The best help we had was a drywall jack we borrowed from my brother-in-law. If you are going to attempt this project, find yourself a jack. It will save you, literally.

Getting a board up -- assisted by our little helpers... Seth loved the fact that he could help crank it up.

The living and dining room boards are all up. We gave ourselves a couple of days to recover from the neck and shoulder aches. Next up will be to fill in and sand all the screw holes that won't be covered by the trim boards and then get the ceiling painted.

We are doing this project in phases because our stair railing will be done any day now and the ceiling needs to be up before we install the floors, but the floors need to be installed before the railing can be put in. So, we are in a bit of a time crunch on one end the house. Once the stair railing is installed, then we'll continue the ceiling throughout the rest of the space and then finish up the floor installation as well. It is all about priorities at this point.