Tongue and Groove Ceilings

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:09:47 GMT, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> My wife and I are about to start building a home in the country. We
> want to use tongue and groove ceilings in several rooms. Where is the
> best place to buy t & g? Are their choices of wood, texture,
> finishes, etc? We want something that looks like a distressed pine.

Knotty pine can get pretty busy on a ceiling. Your local sawmill
should have some samples and options for you. Please, please, please
do yourself a favor and finish the boards _before_ you put them up.
Been thre, done that. It looks fantastic but my neck wasn't the
same for months because we finished after it was up.

> Is that possible. Any suggestions of where to buy where we can look
> at choices would be appreciated.

Grade 2 might be a starting point to look at. Depends on what you like
the look of. Keep in mind it'll yellow/darken no matter what finish
you put on it. I love how it looks, though.

Dave Hinz

[email protected] wrote:
>
> My wife and I are about to start building a home in the country. We
> want to use tongue and groove ceilings in several rooms. Where is the
> best place to buy t & g? Are their choices of wood, texture,
> finishes, etc? We want something that looks like a distressed pine.
> Is that possible. Any suggestions of where to buy where we can look
> at choices would be appreciated.

If you're in a metro area, go to a good lumber yard--they'll have a
large supply either on hand or, certainly easily available. Smaller
architectural millwork shops may be quite flexible on making anything
you want reasonably as well. Look at some mag's like Fine Homebuilding,
etc., for a number of upper-end mills and ideas.

Duane Bozarth wrote:
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> >
> > My wife and I are about to start building a home in the country. We
> > want to use tongue and groove ceilings in several rooms. Where is the
> > best place to buy t & g? Are their choices of wood, texture,
> > finishes, etc? We want something that looks like a distressed pine.
> > Is that possible. Any suggestions of where to buy where we can look
> > at choices would be appreciated.
>
> If you're in a metro area, go to a good lumber yard--they'll have a
> large supply either on hand or, certainly easily available. Smaller
> architectural millwork shops may be quite flexible on making anything
> you want reasonably as well. Look at some mag's like Fine Homebuilding,
> etc., for a number of upper-end mills and ideas.

Another thing to keep in mind particularly if you're doing the work
yourself so labor costs aren't as much a factor--buying a lesser grade
can save big bucks at the expense of some additional waste and time in
trimming, etc. Depending on the look desired, a lot of defects may, in
fact, become "character"...

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 06:09:47 -0700, [email protected] wrote
(in article <[email protected]>):

> My wife and I are about to start building a home in the country. We
> want to use tongue and groove ceilings in several rooms. Where is the
> best place to buy t & g? Are their choices of wood, texture,
> finishes, etc? We want something that looks like a distressed pine.
> Is that possible. Any suggestions of where to buy where we can look
> at choices would be appreciated.

I did my dining room and kitchen in HD 4" spruce. It comes with a "rough" and
smooth side. I used a sprayer and water-based poly before installing.
A buddy used aspen in a similar size. Very light colored. Looks great on his
walls.

-Bruce

Most homecenters/lumberyards will have 3/8"x3 1/2" pine "beadboard"
available. Keep in mind, the boards will need some expansion/contraction
room around the edges, like wood floor does, so think about choosing a
crown moulding or other type of moulding that matches to go around the walls
and cover the edges. Prefinish before installing and touch up if
necessary.

Funny thing - I spent most of the day today putting a painted poplar
beadboard ceiling on an exterior porch *back* up today. The boards
apparently were delivered to the job, carried into the house where the
painters primed only the face, and some carpenters installed it by nailing
through the tongue (like hardwood flooring.) with finish nails. Well, after
several weeks of rainy weather, the boards swelled up, buckling the boards
and actually causing many of them to fall from the ceiling. After numbering
and removing the remaining boards, I had the painters prime *both* sides.
Myself and another carpenter reinstalled the ceiling the "right way" and
completed the job with one extra row of the original boards leftover. This
means that the boards, in all the rainy weather, swelled almost 3" across
the 11 ft. width!

Moral to the story- let the wood acclimate a couple of weeks -preferably in
the room in which it will be installed if possible- before finishing and
installing.
Have fun --dave



"Dave Hinz" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:09:47 GMT, [email protected]
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> My wife and I are about to start building a home in the country. We
>> want to use tongue and groove ceilings in several rooms. Where is the
>> best place to buy t & g? Are their choices of wood, texture,
>> finishes, etc? We want something that looks like a distressed pine.
>
> Knotty pine can get pretty busy on a ceiling. Your local sawmill
> should have some samples and options for you. Please, please, please
> do yourself a favor and finish the boards _before_ you put them up.
> Been thre, done that. It looks fantastic but my neck wasn't the
> same for months because we finished after it was up.
>
>> Is that possible. Any suggestions of where to buy where we can look
>> at choices would be appreciated.
>
> Grade 2 might be a starting point to look at. Depends on what you like
> the look of. Keep in mind it'll yellow/darken no matter what finish
> you put on it. I love how it looks, though.
>
> Dave Hinz