Installing a Bead Board Ceiling

Do you have a room in your home where the door stays closed most of the time? Ours is the laundry room. I hate doing laundry! I figured with four kids, the laundry wasn’t going to go away, and I needed to make the room a more pleasant place to be in. The laundry room needed a makeover. Last year, Traci at Beneath My Heart made over her laundry/mud room with a gorgeous bead board ceiling. I was inspired!  A bead board ceiling was exactly what our little laundry room could use!

Our last home had the washer and dryer out in the garage. Doing laundry out in a freezing cold garage in the dead of winter was no picnic. I’m very grateful to have a laundry room in this home, even if it’s ugly.

We’ve installed bead board before in our 1949 Bathroom Renovation and our daughters’ Bead Board Bathroom. I’ve learned a few tips along the way I’ll pass along. We purchased 4x8 foot sheets of plywood bead board. I do not recommend the large compressed fiber board sheets. Granted they are lighter to work with, but it chips and dents easily, and doesn’t look as authentic. We also purchased all the trim for crown molding. We primed and painted all the wood work before we made a single cut. Painting overhead is no fun. Trust me.

Hubs cut out a few corners with a Skil saw and used a jig saw to cut out an opening for the light fixture. Turning your piece upside down usually results in a cleaner cut.

Now came the fun part of lifting the 8 foot board into the air, while standing on two ladders and holding it up to the ceiling. This was exhausting. Dry wall installers use a “T” shaped device that helps hold the dry wall up. We didn’t have that and so we used a makeshift contraption of a few 2x4’s. It helped for sure, but still required holding the board. We started nailing the bead board in place with a finishing nail gun, but ran into a major problem.

We did NOT find out where the joists were in the ceiling before we started. HUGE MISTAKE! The nails were not hitting wood! This is a dilemma when you are holding something over your head FOR-E-VAH!!!

FIND YOUR JOISTS!

My daughter captured this oh-so-lovely-exhausted shot of me after our little joist crisis.

I couldn’t find my safety glasses either, so my sunglasses had to do the job. The bead board has a tongue on one side and a groove on the other. When you add an additional piece of bead board the tongue is slid into the groove and that helps create a seamless appearance.

Needless to say, there were a ton of nail holes to fill with food filler. Hubs added the crown molding and I caulked the edges and seams with paintable caulk, then touched up the paint in any areas that needed it. I won’t give you a lesson on crown molding today. We’ll save that for another post. It is not easy to do, let alone to teach it. We still screw it up,and all I have to say is thank goodness for caulk and wood filler!

The bead board ceiling is finished and looks amazing! I’m so happy with it! I started painting the walls in Aloe by Sherwin Williams which is a lovely turquoise color, but color can be tricky. This room gets a ton of sunshine and the color became a bit over powering and honestly, it didn’t blend well with the play room’s color, Atmospheric by Benjamin Moore. The play room is right next to the laundry room and the two colors clashed. So less than 24 hours after painting the room in Aloe, I decided to re-paint the room in Rainwashed. The walls are still wet in the pic below and not every wall is covered, but it’ll give you an idea of where it’s headed.

The walls are highly textured too, which is makes painting very time consuming. Shelves will be installed and a new lighting fixture has been ordered.  I’m excited for the final reveal which will be soon! So stay tuned!

Kim

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