shoestring ceiling and wall surfaces?

[leeroy]

Good idea for a quickie, temporary seal for the interior outside walls. Thanks.

[leeroy]

yup. not for long term at all.

[leeroy]

Yup. Not looking for a Martha Stewert/ Beaver Cleaver look. Just livable for an OF. Screw doilies and knick knacks.

[leeroy]

No codes, tis rural. Profit? My bid is so low for the place, three years in a one br apt would pay for it. The ground is worth more than the dollars involved. The house, well, and septic is gravy.

thanks for the advice and it is sound. Hiring labor is tough on a senior's fixed income. Can get some done via a barBq and some cases of beer, no doubt.

[Ed]

"Yep, ceiling is more of a problem- how to support insulation?"

You can support ceiling insulation with "lightning rods," lengths of stiff wire about 16.5" long that you push up between the joists. Or put nails in the joists and run twine across to support the insulation.

[nicksanspam]

Or polyethylene film stapled up under the joists. The house needs airsealing and the insulation needs a vapor barrier.

Nick

[cshenk]

Dunno! But you can get sailcloth types that are. They wont be as cheap as drywall or just regular 'flame retardant material' but they should last well.

I take it you actually not only want reasonably cheap priced, but specifically a different look from drywall. It's why I offered up my poor old college days solution to a somewhat similar problem.

Well, once you nail gun it (staple gun if that suits better) to the rafters, it will sag in the middle unless you support it. Normally this is done with drywall but I, like you, was dealing with a raw ceiling with just insulation there (paper toward the inside of the house if you were not sure).

I used unbent metal clotheshangers from folks who did lots of drycleaning. It's normally real easy to get a grunch of them. Local freecycle for your area can probably yield 300 or so free ones easy with just one 'want' post.

I used those every 3 feet between the beams before i put the cloth colver up. Made for what i thought was a kinda unique billowing effect of the cloth but also took the stress off the staples where the insulation was drifting down in the center and would have ripped the cloth out.

A nicer look, would have been thin wood (something like molding) applied

*over* the cloth and between the beams and stained same color as the beams.

Yes, I didnt mention it but I got a cheap cherry wood stain and put it on the beams with a sponge mop. Didnt varnish it or anything, just stained them all. I had the stain free from Mom leftover from last time she'd had us refinishing a house and gotten a huge lot for all the deck work etc. (No worries if that sounds odd, as some here may recall, my Mom and us 3 kids used to do what is called 'house flipping' now, to make money to live on).

The easiest way to mount that 'molding' is also more expensive. You'd get enough of it to run all along both sides of the beams in the ceiling, then come time to put the cross pieces up, just lay them above that (cut so they just barely fit between beams and lay on the long pieces along the beams). You can then hold them nicely in place with a nail on each side that sticks out a bit. These cross pieces now hold the cloth up. How far between is up to you and your sense of style but you can always add more or move them around (just lift up and shift).

If you have a grunch of old tounge-n-groove wall stuff in there to remove, those pieces can make this.

I thought of this pattern then, but a rental I was only going to be in for at most 2 semesters, wasnt worth that much of my time and the owners were not about to pay for the wood.

Oh if you ant to just have the crossbars of wood, you can just put 2 nails (sticking a bit out) at the bottom of where you want the wood, then 2 a bit higher (1/2 the depth of the wood) to either side and drop it in the pocket you made. If you mess up and one isnt even, they just lift out and you can use the claw on the hammer to shift the nails out and re-reat so it's even.

So now you have cheap (material and wire coat hangers inside) or fancy (wood molding to create a square pattern in each rafter set).

Anything useable for you? You did say 'artist loft look' suits and this is pretty much close to that but allows insulation yet covers it.

I'll make one pitch though. Please go best 'flame retardant' you can find. I gather you do not have any electrical lines in the ceiling so it's slightly less an issue, but the walls can be. In my case, the electrics were all 3 ft from the devised walls of the attic (used the extra space behind them for storage). Other than a floor, it truely was an unfinished attic when I got there with deep eves and only 1 outlet added at the far end. But hey, it was 25$ a month in 1979 ;-)

[cshenk]

"Ed" wrote

AKA, wire coat hangers ;-)