Kitchen Ceiling Project

One problem area in the house was the kitchen ceiling. It was the only room in the house with a popcorn texture. Popcorn is not too bad to remove, unless it has been painted, then it becomes like concrete and extremely hard to remove. This, of course, had been painted. We had patched the ceiling in a few places, also, so whatever we did was going to involve a lot of work. 

This is a picture of a small section of the ceiling that was the result of a few hours of work when Les scraped the popcorn and put new mud up. Pretty discouraging.
Monday morning, he asked me to come to the kitchen to discuss alternatives. He Said, "What would you think about a wood ceiling...not pretty like Teressa's." My friend Teressa had a wood ceiling that absolutely love. It looks something like this, but on a smaller scale.

That is why he quickly said it wouldn't look like that. He had a piece of wood in his hand that was salvaged from a wall we took out. It was fine, but finding and cleaning enough to cover the ceiling was going to be hard. We went outside and looked around for ideas...

YES. We had two piles of wood from the weathered fence we tore down in January. We collected the better pieces and began a process.
First, we had to take the nails out of the slats.

Then, we cut the ends off, and cut away parts that were rotten. 

      
YES, that is me using the mighty power saw. I really did that, wearing my pink gloves. As you can see, I have my hammer in my pink tool belt. My cell phone was in one of those handy pockets.
After the boards were trimmed, we used a very stiff steel brush to brush off the dirt, rotten wood, and debris.

     


At that point, the slats were ready to hang.

And, I used the nail gun. I was afraid to even get close when Les was using it. I have heard stories about people being accidentally shot with those things, and it looked dangerous to me. Les assured me that he could not shoot me because the gun would not shoot unless it was pressed against a hard surface. With that cleared up, I got into it. Wow, that's me, climbing ladders and using power tools, two things I am afraid of. Yay for overcoming fears.
This was really hard work, though. My arms were so tired I could barely wash and blow dry my hair. Les did better. He is used to more physical labor.
Anyway, here is the almost finished product.

 We are really happy with the results, but still plan to finish it with a stain or whitewash finish. I think it adds character to the house, and a unique touch.