Daily Home Decorations: Installing a Beadboard Ceiling

Installing a Beadboard Ceiling

One of my biggest inspirations for my powder room makeover was adding beadboard just like the House of Smiths.

When I started this makeover, this is what my ceiling looked like:

I had a pretty awful textured ceiling going on:

In fact, the whole room had a LOT of issues:

More "before" photos of the entire room are here

I got to work sketching out schematics of how I wanted my ceiling to look:

I knew I needed 6 inch wide boards on the edges of the ceiling because my beadboard (the same type I used to back my garage mudroom built-ins) wasn't wide enough to cover the whole ceiling.

The problem was that when I measured the distance between the ceiling air conditioning vent and the wall, there wasn't enough room. Therefore, before I did anything else, I had to move the vent.:

You probably noticed I changed the wall color as well.. that will be part of my future post revealing the entire bathroom.

I first used a drywall saw to cut out a space around the vent:

I pushed the vent over as far as i could (it was jammed in between studs so it only could move about 3/4 of an inch.) I was then able to miter, paint and prime the boards that would go around the edge of the ceiling:

I installed them with both liquid nails and 3 inch finishing nails. They weren't perfect, but it wasn't anything caulk and spackle couldn't fix. I also marked the studs in the ceiling so I knew where to attach the beadboard:

Once the trim was installed I was able to measure the exact width of the opening and the location of the A/C vent and exhaust fan. (It is much easier to do this when the beadboard is laying face down since that is the orientation it will be on the ceiling):

I used a jig saw to cut cut down the beadboard and cut out the openings:

The next step was the only part of the project that required a second set of hands. I coated the back of the beadboard in liquid nails and drove in finishing nails making sure to hit the studs:

Once the beadboard was up, the gaps needed molding to finish the look:

As you can see i wasn't able to add molding where the A/C vent abutted the outside board, but it looked fine. Much better than having to notch the border.