Past project: The coffered ceiling

Note: If you would like to make a ceiling like this in your home, see the offer at the bottom of this post.

Adding style to a simple room. The ceiling in our living room used to be of the "popcorn" variety.

Years ago my wife, daughter and mother made the trip to Ashville, North Carolina to tour the Biltmore House. This home, touted to be the largest in the USA, is itself a piece of art. The architect, Richard Morris Hunt (1828-95) designed the 175,000 square foot, 250 room home in the French Renaissance style. This style features rich ornamentation which made a big impression on me. I began thinking of ways to add architectural features to my own home.

Most of the public rooms in the Biltmore house have elaborate ceiling treatments, some of them quite ornate. See below (the photos are clickable for a larger view):

The billiard room. Very ornate - note the medallions that hang from the ceiling.

The tapestry gallery. The ceiling is a series of richly stenciled beams.
Photos from "A Guide to Biltmore Estate" published by the Biltmore Company.

So, I began thinking about how I could add some architectural detail to the ceilings of my own home - that was within my skill level. The first project resulted in a coffered ceiling for my living room. With this project I had several design considerations:

• We have eight foot ceilings, so the coffers could not be very deep.
• I needed to lay out the coffers so that they were pleasing to the eye.
• I needed to lay out the coffers to yield the least amount of material waste as possible.
• I wanted the materials to be light weight.

Boxes. There are 15 boxes in this ceiling.

Shadows. The boxes cast shadow lines which create visual interest.

The process
I first removed as much of the existing textured popcorn ceiling as possible. I did this with a scraper on a pole; a process that created a giant mess. I then used a stud finder and a chalk line to locate the ceiling rafters. I screwed 1/8" hard board to the ceiling which provided a smooth surface. The layout of the coffers in part was determined by the size of a sheet of hardboard.

I then laid out the grid using the basic pine available at my local home center. This material is inexpensive and easy to use. I attached boards that run across the rafters which provided a way to attach boards that run in the same direction with the rafters. This was important because in most cases, the rafters and the grid did not line up.

Then it was just a matter of building box beams and applying molding. The molding is built up using a simple casing molding attached to the ceiling and a small crown molding attached to the beams. This application yields a molding that is wider than it is deep which gives the illusion of a deeper molding.

I caulked everything and painted it. This wasn't a difficult project, but it did require a lot of planning and thinking through the steps I needed to take.

Related posts:
See the renovation of my dining room ceiling by clicking here.
See the renovation of my foyer by clicking here.

Want to know how you can add a coffered ceiling like this to your home?

This post is the most visited page at woodfever.net. It is also the project I have received the most questions about. I decided to re-create the process for building a coffered ceiling in my e-Book, "How to Add a Coffered Ceiling to Your Home." This 27 page document has over 60 photos and illustrations and gives step-by-step instructions for creating such a ceiling in your home.

To find out more, click here.

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