Wood Ceiling

[Michael Stevens]

Hi,

I have a vaulted family room ceiling that is currently drywalled. I'd like to place a wood ceiling over the drywall, but I'm having some trouble deciding which product to go with, and I'm hoping someone out there can offer some advice.

First, since the project is over 500 square feet, I'd really like to keep the cost down..

Armstrong makes a laminate product called Woodhaven designed specifically for ceilings, but it requires furring strips to be installed over the drywall, and although it looks better than you'd think, it is afer all a laminate and so doesn't look quite real. It does have the advantage of running $2.50 per sq ft (plus furring strip cost)

Instead I was thinking about going with an inexpensive prefinished flooring product, maybe a wood veneer or engineered product. I've seen some of this stuff as low as $3-3.50 per sq ft prefinished. I would presume it could be installed directly onto the drywall via nails through the underlying joists (It's only 3/8-9/16" thick, so I assume weight wouldn't be an issue.)

While I wouldn't put it on my floors, since I doubt it would wear very well, wear is not really an issue for me, since we do very little walking on the ceiling...

Is this a reasonable route to take or is there a better alternative? Thanks for any response...

[Bridger]

have you considered wood?

[GSX]

I'm bidding on a job right for a wood ceiling. The customer didn't like the fake look of most the pre-finished offerings. We started looking into 1x6 pine, v-groove on one side, beaded on the other. In this case, we'll have the v-groove showing. After I get to the lumberyard on Monday or Tuesday, I'll be able to give you an idea how much the materials will run, at least in the Northeast.

Naturally, there will be some extra labor over refinished since the boards will need to be primed and painted, but that's not too big of a deal.