This is what the bedroom ceiling looked like before the upgrade. This is a basement bedroom. Nothing fancy, boring, typical office building cubicle style esthetics.
Initially when we bought the house the wall where the picture hangs was not there it was open into the stairwell/pool table area on one end and open into the mechanical room on the other end. One wall is an outside wall and the other is an interior cement block wall. The original owners had covered all the walls in redwood planks, which were stained not painted.
If, like me, you grew up in a home where painting wood was a crime against humanity then you would understand the the decision made to paint the walls down there was not done lightly. It was made when we thought we needed to sell the house and apparently the rest of the world sees wood and brown as old. Grey was king at the time so I painted the basement grey. I have regretted this. Such is life. The ceiling they installed in the basement was unique. They used thin planks of redwood and created a grid, and then more thin planks of redwood with nails on the edges for spacing. These were laid into the grid to form a wood ceiling with 1/4 gaps between the boards. I’m not 100% sure why the gap, maybe to break up the heavy? What I do know is that one day while working in the basement a very large caterpillar thing dropped onto the counter by my head. I’m not afraid of bugs but that was unsettling. I also have long hair and the thought of something dropping out of the ceiling into my hair made me want to put up a different ceiling. One without gaps, one where I did not have to hold my breath and run through the room covering my head. I bought the normal cheap acoustic ceiling tiles and spent a day putting them up. They did the job and initially I told myself I liked it because it brightened the room up and there was a lighter carpet on the floor so it all worked. I understand that I never addressed how the giant caterpillar thing got up there in the first place. My life is full of things that I prefer to never really think that hard about. I prefer to live content in the knowledge that they can no longer fall in my hair.
When we had that little incident with the valve in the ceiling after fixing the shower I asked myself, “Self, do you want to replace what you don’t love with more of what you don’t love?” Of course the answer was no. It would be easier, it would be cheaper, and it would be quicker but it would also be something I was not in love with. There were other tiles that had some suspicious stains on them and some that had chunks missing. I would ask how in the heck does that even happen? But I’m afraid one of my family members might answer and then I would have to deal with that information. Neither Bill nor I hated the deeper wood tones ceilings that were in there when we bought the place. We didn’t like the gaps and the wood was showing it’s age but we didn’t hate it. When we redid the ceiling in the “theater” I used acoustic tiles but I painted them maroon and then stenciled a large patterned design first in a bronze to give an illusion of shadow and then slightly offset in gold. I added stars in glow in the dark paint but that was just for fun you can’t see them till all the lights are off. The idea was to mimic the old beautiful theaters and offer some sound buffering. I still like that ceiling even though the kids are grown and we don’t do pizza and movie night down there anymore.
When I found this ceiling tile I knew I was in love.
Manchester Cherry Wood Ceilume tile
It makes me think of wooden sailing ships and captains quarters or smoking rooms or libraries of yore. The company is great and I would highly recommend them for any project you are doing. The product is a dream to work with. Light weight, cuts with a pair of scissors, if it dents it typically just pops right back out, you can manipulate it into place and then snap it back into shape. I love it. I had read that someone had problems because of how lightweight it was so they just put their old acoustic tile on top of them and they stay in place fine. I didn’t want to do this because I wanted to make it easier to get into the ceiling if needed because we run network wire up there. I also didn’t want to deal with soggy tiles if we had another issue with that valve. So far so good we don’t have any problems with any of them popping out of place when the door is opened or closed. I did have one tile that is fairly small and it did not want to lay flat so I did take the acoustic tile and place it on top of that tile and all is well. Will they provide any type of sound absorption? I don’t think so not like the acoustic do. Will they be as dusty and make crumbly bits every time you have to move one? Heck no, they might catch stuff from above but they will NOT add their own layer of smutz as they break apart when touched! Do I think they made the room feel to dark or to small? No, but I’ve already said I like dark. I keep teasing Bill I’m moving down there. I did all the painting of the tiles in that room, I setup my easel and would stay down there for hours, it felt warm and safe and peaceful. I am especially glad that we redid the ceiling since we ended up having to redo the floors and we went with a faux cherry flooring. The colors balance each other beautifully. I’m also glad that I repainted the walls, twice, from the original light grey. I had gone with a medium grey that I had which has a slight bluish cast and when it was done and the floor and ceiling were going in it felt wrong. I had a test can of a green we got when redoing the kitchen. I lovingly call this color calf poo green because it has this yellow odd tint to it. Upstairs it did not work. Down here, once it dried that warmth to the green is perfect. Since I was already in deep I decided to repaint all the white woodwork and the door staying with the faux cherry theme. I even swapped out the wolf picture which was more blue with one that has a much warmer brown background. Even the wallpaper on the one wall feels better. Here is what it looks like today:
Here is a side by side:
It will continue to have tweaks made to it because it can be better and when it’s not in use as a bedroom I’m thinking it will be where I paint so having it be the kind of space that makes me want to be there and puts me in a creative place is high on my list of things to do. I had always thought white was the way to go so that you really saw the colors right. White does not make me feel creative. What inspires you to create?
