Install a Woodhaven Ceiling Plank
If you're sick of looking at that old drywall ceiling and the idea of a false drop-ceiling doesn't appeal to you, consider a wooden ceiling. Wood ceilings work on a similar principle as a wood floor, with courses of planking held together at the sides by tongue-and-groove milling. Woodhaven is a line of wood laminate ceiling planking popular for its ease of installation.
Instructions
1. Use your stud finder to locate the joists in the ceiling. Mark each joist along its length by snapping a line with your chalk snap line. Mount furring strips across the joists, putting a furring strip every 24 inches from wall to wall across the ceiling, sinking one wood screw through the face of the furring strips at each place where they cross a joist.
2. Screw your first course of ceiling planks to the furring strips, in a line running perpendicular to the strips and starting along one end of the ceiling. Set the course with the grooved sides of the boards facing out into the room and the other side sitting half an inch from the wall, to allow the wood to move with climate changes. Secure the boards by sinking one wood screw along the edge near the wall at each place where the board cross a furring strip. (Ceiling trim will later cover both the gap and the screw.)
3. Secure mounting brackets on the other side of the boards (the grooved side that faces into the room) using the screws that came with the brackets. Put one bracket at each point where the boards cross furring strips.
4. Hang the next course of boards by clipping them together at the edges of the first course, and setting brackets on the other side at each point where the boards cross furring strips. Cut the ends of the boards as needed on your miter saw so they fit against the perpendicular walls. Work your way across the whole ceiling.
5. Use a table saw to length-cut the last course of boards so they fit against the ending wall with a half-inch gap there. Install your ceiling trim to cover the gaps.
Tags: furring strips, cross furring, other side, boards cross, boards cross furring, brackets other,