A solid White Pine ceiling in my office
How about a beautiful, easy to build, possibly economical wood ceiling? When I built my office here in the country I wanted to use as much wood as possible, and so made all of the ceilings of solid wood. The ease of construction is just as appealing as the inherent beauty of the wood. You can use new wood, old wood, narrow wood, wide wood - whatever you wish. You can mix different types of wood and some of it can even be painted pieces salvaged from demolished structures. In fact old gray barn boards are very attractive when mixed randomly with white or yellow pine. Pieces of lumber too short for other projects can make a ceiling board or two. Take a look at the ease of construction.
Instructions
1. Nail the quarter round to each side of the 1 x 4's that will be used to strip your joists. It is good if you precut an assembly of 1 x 4's to fit a joist. It's easier to nail the quarter round to the 1x4's on a saw horse or table than up on a ladder.
2. Strip the bottom edge of your ceiling joists with 1 x 4's, centering the width of the 1 x 4 on the width of the joist so that and equal amount projects out each side of the joist. It is important to keep these as straight and even as practical so can always have a ledge to rest on. Note: The assumption here is that the ceiling joists are '2' nom width (1.5in in reality) if your joist are wider then you will have to rip strips that are the width of your joist plus say 1.5in per each side of the joist)
3. Measure and cut one or two for a trial fit up. Place one of these into the space between two joists, inserting it diagonally up so you can get it between the narrowest space (between the opposing pieces of quarter round) The batt insulation (assuming it exists) can just be pushed up with the top end of the board until the bottom end can be swung up past the quarter round on the other side. The attached sketch makes this verbiage a little clearer.
4. Once you are able to lay the board flat on the 1 x 4 ledges, shift it all the way against the face of one of the joists. The other end should still be hidden, and be beyond the edge of the quarter round. If that end can drop past the quarter round the board is too short and it could (will!) drop out. One carpenter I hired didn't follow my instructions and some boards in my ceiling dropped out, and longer ones had to be cut. Fortunately this was as easy as the original installation.
Tags: quarter round, , ceiling boards, ceiling joists, each side joist