December 18, 2007
My beautiful tongue and groove ceiling
The living room ceiling, stripped in an earlier renovation (photo by Katherine Slingluff)
My house is evolving―the drywall is being installed, the porch is almost done and the exterior trim should be completed soon.
My kitchen ceiling is gorgeous. It was initially sinking and bowing from water damage and I guess lack of support beams. We took it out…and discovered mold inside on the wood and thick paint with caked up grease. YUCK!
I wasn't planning to miss those wood beams at all after taking them down. I was initially evisioning the "possibility" of its beauty on my ceiling after I sanded it down, but have no regrets about removing it. (I'm keeping it for use on something else―either cleaning it for my studio, someone else's house, or create scultpure with it :) )
After the tongue and groove ceiling was removed, the ceiling beams were reinforced and balanced, and ripe and ready for some fresh new tongue-and-groove wood. As I am so involved in my house and watching what's going into it as they build it, I happened to see them (the workers―with direction and approval from my contractor!!!) bringing the boards in to install that YUCKY, greasy, lead-painted ceiling back in my house…yes! the nasty one that was taken down and still uncleaned and without any mold remediation. I was in shock!
I put a stop to that right away! My contractor and I NEVER discussed returning this moldy, greasy, lead-paint old ceiling to my kitchen, and I would have never approved of returning mold back to my house. The ceiling would have to be mold remediated, cleaned and sanded first (my house was mold remediated―I'll get to that later).
I noted to him and the workers that the ceiling is nasty and moldy, and asked them how they planned to remove it. They said they would take the paint off after they installed it. What!?! There's mold on one side and caked up grease and paint on the other! I couldn't understand how that plan was going to work.
I'm just so glad I was there to catch this (another reason for good communciation with your contractor and being involved with what's going on as they work on your house). Its very important to know what's going into your house, not just how pretty it'll look in the outcome.
So Mike, the builder/carpenter foreman, suggested to me that I use the thin beadboard ceiling that they installed under my porch, since I didn't want the YUCKY mold ceiling going back up. I thought that it wouldn't look right at first (I was set on either replacing my 4"- wide, grooved tongue-and-groove ceiling as it is, or not using wood at all and just drywalling it).
You see, the tongue and groove was a part of the original house, and was the same tongue and groove ceiling that was in my parlor/dining room. I was thinking of consistency with the old house features and maintaining some of this look as I restore my house. Well, in order to do this, we would have to find the old pine and get it milled―which would take a bit of time and $$$…and we needed the ceiling up ASAP to continue moving on.
My plan B was to just drywall it. Well, Mike suggested to me again the next morning to go ahead and let him install the thinner beadboard ceiling. He said he had some left over from the porch and had installed a ceiling like this in another house. He assured me that it would look great. I took his word on it…gave the go ahead…and Mike was right! The ceiling is beautiful!
I may put a cream glaze wash on it. It would be the color of the walls (a cream color) and would take out the light, raw pine look on the ceiling. I don't want to paint on it (I actually love wood and like to see its grain).
Thanks also to Nancy Robbins, the interior designer and Lyndon Landix, the electrician for helping out with the design and installation of the recessed kitchen lights. They layout of the lights and the tongue-and-groove ceiling are such a complement to one another!
*rashida
(11) Comments
Comment on this BlogRashida,
Will you describe the tongue & groove ceiling and the recessed kitchen lighting? I have the same scenerio in my house and wondered how I would put recessed lighting in the wood ceiling I discovered under the dry wall, wall paper and old muslin netting.
Thank you,
Linda Ireland
PS: your house project is amazing & so are you! You go, girl!
Hi Linda,
The recessed kitchen lights in my ceiling were installed into the ceiling framing before the new wood ceiling was implemented. They are lined up on the ceiling around the inside perimeter of a kitchen. I'll take a picture of it and post. Because my lights were installed AFTER the moldy, lead paint covered wood was removed and BEFORE the new wood was added, there may be different considerations. Sounds great that you did some digging and discovered your wood ceiling! I had the same experience in my parlor/dining room, the ceiling that is on the blog. I think an electrician can install the lights and bring the wires up through your ceiling (in the attic). I'll ask Mike, the carpenter/builder/contractor working on my house about your question.
*rashida
Thank you so much,, Linda
After watching the absurdity of the MA house this fall, your renovation is certainly refreshing. It will make a nice home. I suspect that the modern improvements like sprayed insulation, new windows and doors will make a really efficient house. Be strong and resist the producers urging to create a 5000 square foot addition with heated toilet seats, sacred cow leather covered barstools and diamond encrusted counter-tops. (BTW, unless prohibited, please post a source for your art.)
Hi John,
I'm really looking forward to a nice, confortable home also- I hope you continue to follow our work on my home renovation. My artwork website is www.currentsofclay.com. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
With someone working on you house there an old Russian proverb to follow and that is “you pretend to work I pretend to pay you “ in other words get involve over the years of being a day labor and watching some bozos working on my father house, unless get something one that loves what there are doing like the TOH dream team there is going to be a lot of grief with of the workman so don be afraid to ask questions and to do a little research on the contractor back round. Remember its your house and your money.
I missed the first 20 minutes of today's episode of this old house. They referenced the contractor was gone and this had never happened before. What happpened? I'm assuming since the contractor tried to put up old moldy wood in the ceiling is why it happened? Please clarify.
I'm remodeling an old bathroom and gutted it down to the studs and ceiling joists. I want to put tongue and groove pine on the ceiling that was left over from a previous job. Any good way of doing this while preventing mold and mildew?
Hi,
I brought the house i'm living in about 4 months ago and although it really well decorated I've started to notice a few things which are not right.
The bathroom floor seems to be sinking in some parts and I'm getting really worried as it seems to be getting worse. Has anyone else had a similar problem and if so how much did it cost to repair?
Hi did you have to do anything to the wood before you put it in the ceiling, did you have to seal from above or just place insullation above it. Will you paint it? I have the same thing in my old house and I am debating exposing it or sheetrocking over it.
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