The Michelangelo Project

I’m not planning to try to carve a 21st Century version of David. (Cutting all the bricks for the porch and walkway is about as much of a foray into stone-carving as I can handle for a while.) Nor am I planning to create anything as grandiose as the Sistine Chapel, but …

There is a common bond though: Ceilings. After much research, review, and many discussions with the mother, we’re planning, at some point in the very near future, to resurface the ceilings in the bathroom, kitchen, and downstairs family room. We're going with tin-type ceiling tiles, or the look of at least. The plan is to use one product in the kitchen, and another for the bath and family rooms.

Because the kitchen will need backsplash as well – and I don’t want to attempt a metallic paint job on a surface that will likely need very regular cleaning – I’ve opted for a finished and somewhat sturdier product. (The mother wants to put stainless steel in the kitchen. We’ve already purchased new cabinet hardware and faucets. Appliances will be next. UGH. Hoping that’s something that can be afforded this year!)

For the bathroom and the family room, I’m going with unpainted styrene from Surfacing Solutions. They offer four different patterns (that’s the picture) in the 2x4 size tile. (These you can nail or glue up. They also come in 2x2 size for T-grid/lay-in installation.) I’ll be gluing these up using white or translucent adhesive. I thought about double-sided tape – because that’s one of their recommendations –but I’m afraid you might be able to see that through the panel.

I sent for samples of the two on the left back in the fall. I think we’re going with the second pattern from the left on both the bathroom and family room ceilings. The bathroom is small, but the family room? Ouch. This will get a little pricey at $12/sheet. But it’s a whole lot cheaper than the option for the kitchen. (If you buy at least 100, the price drops by $1 per sheet. I won’t need quite that many.)

This will really help brighten the space in the bathroom as well as the space downstairs. The POs did a half-assed and horrible job of finishing the basement. I corrected their flooring and wall woes more than a decade ago. However, we’ve managed to just live with the ultra-shoddy taping job on the ceiling. We’ve been talking about it for years and before we got wrapped up in all of the simultaneous big, outdoor projects last year, we had planned to do it then. (Yeah, best laid plans and all that …) Then, back in August, it became clear that we might have to drill through the ceiling to put in the new dining room outlet so that pushed the idea even further onto the back burner. So, now that I have those lovely three new holes in the ceiling, it seems like an even more appropriate time to tackle the job.

For the kitchen, we’ll either go with Armstrong ceiling tiles from Lowe’s or true tin from American Tin Ceilings. Neither one is cheap (almost double the styrene option) and I’ll need to buy trim, too.

At least the kitchen is small.