Today I thought I would update you on what we’ve been working on around the house…
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AJ is working on some electrical work, wiring a Ring floodlight above our garage door, which sounds fairly straightforward, but we don’t currently have one already installed. He has to route some wiring outside, secure it to the ceiling of the garage, drill through the siding of our house and then wire and secure the Ring floodlight into its spot.
I think he can do it, it’s just a matter of how long it’ll take to get it done (like most things in this house).
I, on the other hand, am finally finishing up making our master bedroom ceiling look presentable. About two years ago, I had my heart set on adding shiplap to our ceiling. I really liked the look of some sort of wood paneling (not the current popcorn ceiling that is so common in older homes), so we decided to give it a try.
Well, shiplap was expensive at this point in time, if you remember anything about supply chain issues during the pandemic. Instead, we found some gray wash panels that were made of plywood. They had the appearance of shiplap but were in larger sheets. They were half the cost of shiplap, too.
This being one of our first projects other than painting the walls and refinishing the hardwood floors, AJ had some help installing these. He ended up having to trim all the panels to make them easier to install on our ceiling. We rented a nail gun, got them installed, and then later added a chandelier.
Two problems, though.
One, the sheets of plywood we installed started to sag over the months. They weren’t going to come crashing down on us in the middle of the night, but they needed to be secured more before moving forward with sealing the seams between the sheets. The ceiling had a bit too much of a rustic look I wasn’t very fond of. They had open joints between the panels in no particular pattern other than being bold and overtly there. (This would have looked okay with staggered shiplap planks, but not so much with big sheets of plywood.)
Two, to install the chandelier we had to cut a hole in one of the plywood sheets. I can’t remember what sort of tool was used to do this (probably a jigsaw), but it created some really jagged edges. This rough look really bothered me over the months, but I dreaded fixing it and couldn’t figure out a way to disguise it. We tried adding medallions at different times, but they never ended up fitting around the existing chain and covering the large hole cut through the plywood sheet.
It was obvious we would need something custom made…
We pushed it off as long as we could, focusing on other projects in our home that needed our attention more than an ugly ceiling in our bedroom. Eventually, though, we finally added more nails to the plywood ceilings and filled the seams of the panels for a more seamless look. (A very slow process.)
On Christmas, I surprised AJ with a kit of nail guns, a staple gun, and a compressor (you can see it HERE), so he promptly added more nails to the ceiling.
I had brainstormed over and over and finally came up with an idea for filling the seams on the bedroom ceiling: caulking. I procrastinated so long because I knew how much of a pain it would be to deal with. That being said, it wasn’t nearly as messy as anticipated–I have caulked our entire bathroom and part of the kitchen, so I knew I could do it. It was more about finding that needed motivation to just jump in and start.
I found this warm gray caulk that blended in perfectly with the paneling. Sheet by sheet, I caulked between the seams over the span of about a week. (Don’t you know how much of a pain it is to work on ceilings!?)
Finally, we were getting somewhere and the ceiling started looking so much nicer, as if it were one single, cohesive piece. It has a more polished style that I’m loving.
Next week, I plan on starting on my custom “medallion” for the chandelier. It took me a while to find an idea that I thought would realistically work for us. I’m excited to share how that works out in the near future.
As AJ finishes the garage electrical wiring and works on changing out all the outlets in our house over these next few weeks, I’m finalizing colors, designs and layout, sourcing products, a timeline of events, and budget for the kitchen (whew, that’s a mouthful!). We will likely start on it in early-mid February.
So much ahead, but I am so ready to get my kitchen I’ve been dying for. In fact, I think the kitchen has been my main motivation to get our bedroom ceiling done. I swore up and down I wouldn’t move onto something new until I got that completed first.
As I look toward starting on the kitchen remodel in the next few weeks, I can only stop and be in awe of the progress we’ve made on this home of ours. We’re inching closer and closer to having the main level of our house complete.
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I love it!
Thank you! It was worth all the hard work.