Transformation of a Cottage Kitchen Part 4: From Popcorn to Plank Ceiling

Good morning, dear blog readers! I want to first take a minute for a bit of a personal message to thank you all for your continued support, encouragement, and visits during this long remodeling process. I've been blogging for quite a few years now with lots of projects and challenges along the way and I realize this cottage transformation is a slow one, but a transformation, none-the-less. As crazy as this may sound, I believe this house - this normal little house in a normal, not-so-charming neighborhood, longs to be a cottage with all it's heart and I'm determined Thank you for being there every step of the way. to make it just that. "Will it ever really be a cottage?", I ask hubs in my moments of uncertainty. "Yes it will. I promise." he always replies. The little house that could, despite the odds and likelihood that something different...something sweet and homey or even charming...could pop up on my not so sweet, homey, or charming street unexpectedly like a wild flower in a desert. The road ahead is a long one, with more challenges I'm sure, but I suppose that's why I call it a transformation journey. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is...Thank You from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me and coming along with me on this journey. Thank you for being there every step of the way. I so enjoy sharing our experiences with you, the good and the bad, and I look forward to sharing with you for a long time to come!

Now to the kitchen ceiling! Our kitchen/dining room ceiling was once covered with a type of plaster-esque finish that really kind of almost made my stomach turn. It was as if it were an attempt to imitate a cottage cheese/popcorn ceiling finish. Let's be honest here...it was badly done and it was ugly.


What is more is that one could see where the dining room and kitchen additions were added, just by looking at the ceiling. See what I mean?


I knew that whatever solution we came up with, it needed to be inexpensive and it needed to add some cottage charm to the space. And it needed to be easy!



So we decided to go with tung and groove pine planks bought from Lumber Liquidators. I believe we paid around 1.60 a square foot for our pine, but you can get it for as little as .99 a square foot depending on exactly what you buy. Our pine is 3/4 of an inch thick and somewhere between 5 and 6 inches wide. Check out some of the Lumber Liquidators pine plank options and prices here.} Did you ever think that pine planks could be so cheap? The caption below is a little deceiving, I just realized...the planks do not come already primed...by "pre-primed", I meant before being primed...


We did prime and also paint a couple of coats on our planks before we installed them. This not only helped save our necks but painting the "tung" part of the planks is very important because when the planks expand and contract, you won't see unsightly raw wood in the cracks. {After the installation, we also painted by brush a couple more coats. Brushing as opposed to rolling creates a nice, smooth finish.}

Did I mention we needed our ceiling project to be easy? Scraping {or rather sanding} off all that plaster would not have been easy. Applying the tung and groove planks on top of the plaster was easy. Very easy. Before beginning, we needed to determine where the studs in the ceiling were so that we would know where to nail. The blue lines you see represent where the studs are. We decided that we wanted beams in our kitchen, so we just butted the ends of the planks together and would cover them with the beams. If you don't want beams or a long run of seams, just stagger your planks as you would hardwood flooring. And just as with hardwood flooring, make sure you leave a bit of a gap between the planks and the walls to allow for expansion.


We face nailed {nailed through the surface of} our tung and groove planks to the existing ceiling - at the studs - with a nail gun and just puttied the little holes later.












Hubs made these box beams by first attaching a vertical piece right over the seams. He next attached a side piece, followed by the bottom piece, and lastly, the other side piece.



Here you see a beam before the final piece was attached.



To cover the gaps between wall and the planks, we added crown moulding. Those nifty corner pieces made the job much easier!



If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you'll see that we added small trim pieces to cover any gaps left between the beams and the ceiling.


The beams all primed out...


And then painted along with the trim and ceiling! We used a pure white in a gloss finish.






Later we added the flooring - shine on the floor, shine on the ceiling!





As inexpensive as this treatment is, we will be adding it throughout our entire house - room by room. Hoorah for easy and inexpensive projects!

Coming up in Part 5 - Cottage Kitchen and Dining Lighting

{Did you miss Part 3 of Transformation of a Cottage Kitchen?: Check out Part 3: Old Fashioned Brick Backsplash

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If you enjoyed reading about this project, please take a moment to rate it for a contest I've entered. Just scroll to the bottom where it says "rollover to rate this" and click on a star - 5 stars being the highest rating and 1 star being the lowest. I am so grateful to all those that have rated my spaces so far - Thank you!

Blogged for Metamorphosis Monday and DIY Day! Head over to check out some other great projects!