The Great Ceiling Project

The ceiling is done! Actually, let me clarify. The ceiling is not quite done. We have some nail holes to fill with putty, a little caulking, and then some touch up painting. That should be done in the next couple of days, though, and that work is not visible in the following photos, so for the purposes of this blog, we will consider the ceiling done. Here's how it all went down:

Actually, before I get into the run-down, I must say a HUGE thank you to all of our vertically gifted friends who took the time to help us. As we quickly found out, this was not a one-person job, nor was it a short-person job. It took at least two tall men to get it done. So, thank you, thank you, thank you to Aaron, Andrew, and David.

Last Saturday was our planned installation day. We planned, perhaps a little optimistically, to finish it all in one day (except the moulding). That didn't quite happen, although lots of progress was made. I, of course, had to work. So, I was there to help and see the project get underway in the morning and I saw about two hours of work happen before I had to leave. The beginning was fairly easy. Especially given the fact that Aaron didn't need a ladder.



When I left for work, the ceiling was looking about like this and I started to have concerns about it not getting finished that day:



When Aaron had to leave a couple hours later, they had only gotten about a quarter of the way done. We realized that they must have used all of the difficult boards that morning because when Andrew stepped in after Aaron left, the boards went in great and they started cruising through. Apparently Mr. Frisby had some time to get a little creative as well:





In spite of the pace picking up with the easier boards, they weren't quite able to finish before Andrew had to leave and when I returned home that night after work, they had done about three quarters of the ceiling. When I walked into the house, I loved how it looked and was pretty impressed. But, since we had to empty out our living room to work on it, we immediately started making plans for getting it all done. So, we arranged with David to come help us finish it up on Tuesday. He came and after only a couple of hours, they were nearly done. And then we ran into another little problem. We were ONE board short. Just one. At that point, we decided we would get the moulding and get it all ready so we could put in the last board and a half and the moulding all at the same time and be done with it. Scout was very helpful in trying to clean up the sawdust:



Over the next couple of days, we got the final board ready, got the moulding, painted it and made arrangements with David to come back and help finish. They got to work Friday evening and had the last boards up on the ceiling very quickly. It looked fantastic, I thought.



Next it was time for the moulding and that's when things got tricky. Moulding is not the easiest project in the world. Especially for DIYers with minimal experience. I got more and more worried the more Mr. Frisby and David discussed angles and bevels and miters and how they were going to do this corner and that corner and how they needed to set up the saw for each cut. I got really worried when they decided it was time to consult the internet for some instruction. The great moulding debate:



The discussion and figuring out how to cut the moulding probably took three times as long as the actual cutting and installing. Once they figured out the angles and how to set up the saw for each one, the installation went very quickly.





After several hours of hard thinking, they finished. And, all of their figuring and measuring and making test cuts and double-checking numbers paid off because the moulding matched up great and the ceiling looked fantastic!







I'm very happy with how it all turned out and as soon as we finish caulking and doing the touch ups with the paint, we'll be able to put our living room back together. And, now that Mr. Frisby has done one room, the master bedroom ceiling should be a cinch!