DIY - Coffered Ceilings

It was New Year's Eve and we had plans to re-create our awesome New Years Eve from the previous year when we had attended our neighbors party. They had a few babysitters on hand and we sent our kids upstairs while we mingled with other adults, drank adult beverages and ate yummy adult foods. We called the kids downstairs to write their New Year Resolutions onto Chinese lanterns and send them off into the dark nights sky, (something I've done with our kids the last several years and wanted to continue to do with our new neighborhood). It was a blast.

We sent the kids back upstairs with the babysitters and apparently forgot all about them after someone brought out the Cards Against Humanity game and that's when real fun began. A few neighbors trickled home and but we stayed, along with three other couples and brought in the New Year with hysterical conversations, Champaign and really tired children.

Only this year we had decided as a neighborhood that we would host it at our house.

And wouldn't you know, the strep throat two of  my kids had over Christmas decided to creep back up and got me and one of my other children. We were miserable and there was no way we were going to host everyone in our germ invested home for a party.

We made the necessary and sad phone calls to cancel our New Year's Eve Party this year.

We were stuck at home sick, with sick kids.  

Bored.

And as we sat in the dining room staring at each other we commented on how nice the crown molding looked that we had hung over the summer. Then we both glance over into our home office, adjacent to the dining room and without missing a beat, said, "we should really do something in the dining room".

And so it began.

We started googling "coffered ceilings" and read a few blogs and tried to come up with something appropriate for our office. We drew up about 25 different sketches for how the wood would be able to lay based on where the studs were.  

And I began to think that New Year's Eve wasn't a waste after all, we'd sit here and "plan" our coffered ceilings for the office to be completed in the coming New Year.

But I was wrong. Apparently we were planning the coffered ceilings we were about to start installing that night.

It was 5:30pm and my husband looked at me and said, "do you think Lowes is open right now?" And I looked back at him and was like, "why are you going to Lowe's now?"  But he didn't have to answer. I saw the answer in his gleaming eyes, "to go buy wood for the ceiling, of course".

And just like that he was gone.

When he arrived back home he had 10 5 1/5" wooden boards that were 12' long each and enough skinny molding do go inside the interior of each box we had laid out in our diagrams. 

And you guys, check this out. It came out amazing!

I'm not going to lie. We did a lot of it that night.

In between some chicken noodle soup and putting kids to bed we were drilling, banging, painting and drawing more diagrams. We had a few hiccups, but it really went smoothly.

The best part is that we were able to do the coffered ceilings for roughly under $300.

Here is what we did right:

1. We spent a lot of time drawing, re-drawing, and drawing again...on paper...and then on the ceiling...the measurements of the ceiling; exactly where the studs were located and how we could best position the wooden boards to be the most symmetrical as possible and be in the studs.

Originally my husband thought we'd place three rows each direction, creating 12 boxes. But due to the size of the room and my desire to have an open box in the center of the room rather then two boards crossing to make an X, we went with only two boards each direction, creating 9 open boxes.

  
2. We hung the perimeter of the boards first. 

3. We nailed in the "fixed boards" that ran perpendicular to the studs in because there was only one place they could be placed. The boards we bought only came in 12' sections and of course, the length of the room is 14'. So it was a bit tricky to have to cut and measure the 2 foot difference and line it up and get it straight and then putty it in where it looked even. due to where the studs were we had a larger space in the middle with two identically smaller spaces on the outter rim.

4. Next it was time for the cross boards. Even though we had our drawings on paper for where to hang these, and we had marked them on the ceiling. I was a little hesitant. So I held each board up and drew a line on either side of the board right where it was to be placed. Then I measured the inside of each opening to be sure each opening would be the exact same measurements. These cross boards could be hung anywhere since the studs ran perpendicular instead of the same direction.

My inside boxes when measured kept turning up different sizes by just an inch or two. I then realized I had counting for the width of the boards 5 1/2" three times then dividing where they needed to go, which was on our original plans instead of two times which we ended us using only 2 cross boards so I only needed to account for 11" extra inches instead of 16 1/2".  Once I corrected my mistake we literally traced them on the ceiling again before we nailed them in.

5. We had a few boards that when flush against the wall were not even with the adjacent boards. We used a small wood wedge in between the board and the ceiling to align it with the adjacent board. Once the wedge was nailed in, we just bent it to break it off. The interior trim/molding would cover it up later.

6. While the 5 1/2" boards we bought were already white, the interior trim pieces we bought were not. So we painted those first before we nailed them up. Which was nice...until we ran out of wood. We made a quick trip to Lowe's to get the remaining trim pieces and instead of painted a first coat on those and waiting for them to dry, we just went ahead and nailed them up unpainted.

It is really not a big deal either way, but if you have the time putting a coat of white paint on them first is helpful. I would not use ceiling paint. We discovered that the ceiling paint is extra thick and goopy and sticky when applied with a paint brush. Ceiling paint goes on much smoother with a roller at the end to cover everything. So I suggest just a basic white paint on the trim before it is nailed up.  

7. We measured each interior trim piece as we went.

Measured.
Cut.
Hung.
Repeat.

This was tedious, but went quickly. Each measurement was slightly different and we needed to be sure the angled cuts lined up perfectly each time. We had 9 inside boxes with four cuts for each box. But we got it done quickly.

Here is what we did wrong:

1. The first thing we did wrong was as we nailed up the boards we began putting wood putty in each nail hole very carelessly with the thought that we would just sand it down later and paint over it.

It was extremely hard to sand down later. As a matter of fact we sanded and painted several times because the wood putty was such a different texture that we couldn't get the textures to match up. It took lots more sanding than anticipated.

By the time we hung the crown molding around the exterior edges, we got smart enough to use a very small amount of wood putty and to wipe as much away as possible while it was still wet. This eliminated much of the sanding and smoothly later on.

2. The second thing we did wrong was we verbally announced to each other that it was almost as if we knew what we were doing because it was going so smoothly.

Never say these words out loud.

Moments later we moved the saw from one side of the room to the other and did not notice that he had moved from it's "0" position. Therefore the next 45 degree cut we made for the crown molding was not what it was supposed to be. However, we did not notice as we were feeling so confident in how well we were doing that we covered it in wood glue and nailed it up. We cut and trimmed out our next piece and went to dry fit it only to discover out corners did not match up.

We had to pull the whole panel off the wall, scrape off all the glue, cut the board short and cut a replacement corner.

Never say outloud that it looks like you know what you're doing!

3. We tried to paint the ceiling paint on the boards with a paint brush. This was a big mistake. The ceiling paint was heavier than other paints we've used in the past. It was goopy and sticky and painted almost as if you were putting an oil based paint on top of a latex paint. It just didn't work well. We had a short 6" roller that we got out and used on the boards instead of a paint brush and it looked like a million bucks compared to the paint brush. So we learned that we had to use a roller anytime we were applying the ceiling paint.

NYE DIY Coffered Ceilings Was A Success!

All and all we started our New Year off to a good start with new gorgeous coffered ceilings in our home office. After our long New Years Eve weekend we had to go back to work and life and we had to finish the final touches in the evenings. All together it took us about a week to get it all finished to where we were satisfied...

Well satisfied enough. Now I want to repaint the walls that I had just painted before we started this ceiling project! 

Painting the trim work and the ceiling white alone made a huge difference in this room. None of our ceilings are white in this house. They are all the same colors as the original walls were. We painted the dining room ceiling white and now the office and it has lightening up those two rooms tremendously.

The coffered ceiling and the molding, along with the white paint, make our home office look exceptionally nice now.

I'm so pleased with how it turned out. 

I'd love to know what you think!  

Here is a final look, lounging in the settee looking out of the office towards the front door and dining room.