Bedroom Part 1

My old website got hacked, which is why haven't been posting pictures of work on the new house. I decided to just scrap the old site, and move to something easier. There have actually be a bunch of projects at the new house.

Since moving in, we've been sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms. It has taken a tremendous amount of time for me to get my shop organized, and I'm still not done.

Here are the starting pictures of the bedroom. The ceiling is 10 ft high in the middle, with slanted sides down to 8 feet at the walls.

I wish had taken a better picture of that shit 1985 ceiling fan. I didn't even bother to unscrew it. Just beat that thing off with a hammer. Then I set the curtains on fire and threw them out in the street.

There is a crappy texture on the ceiling.

We had walked through a model home and she saw the ceiling below, in an office. She wanted me to do that, to her bedroom. Me, a fine woodworker, wanted me to nail up, what looks to be painted furring strips on the ceiling.

I took a hard pass on that. I explained to her that's what a ceiling looks like when you are trying to cut corners. I told her we weren't doing it.

...

The first thing I had to do was remove all the texture from the ceiling. Which sucks. I filled a pump spray with water, got on a scaffold, and scraped, for days. Possibly weeks.

and scraped

Eventually, I got it all off. Surprisingly, I was able to tell difference between the texture mud and the joint compound. Next I sanded for days, and then had a drywall guy come in and float it out. I had had enough of the scaffold.

Next Sherry primed the entire ceiling in dark gray. The walls will eventually be a lighter gray.

The I went and filled my trailer up with a bunch of pre primed pine boards, and started painting them.

Couple of important notes here. I had to change my design several times. The fine gentlemen that installed the ceiling drywall, when the house was built, were apparently high on crack. It's not even remotely close to being square, or level and each of the sides are at a different angle. My original design was something like this.

I still think this would have been the best look. However, after measuring I realized the light wasn't actually in the center of the room. It was actually off by 3 inches and the above design really hinges on that light being in the center. This isn't my first rodeo, that light isn't in the center of the room for a reason. There is rafter there or with my luck, a 5 inch thick steel beam. So I came up with a design where the light hangs from the beam.

I've never coffered a ceiling before. I found an article in a old issue of fine woodworking from 2003. The directions made sense, so that is what I did. Step one, make a bunch of mounting brackets.

Step 2 find the low spots in the ceiling. The ceiling isn't level but it is relatively flat. I took a measurement in every spot I plan to put a mounting bracket. Based on my calculations there should be no shimming.

Step 3. Figure out how to start. The best way I could think to do this, was just get some layout lines on the ceiling that were square. I started in the lowest corner, traced an outline of my square, then snapped a chalk line off the square line. Did that all the way around, then I found the centers and snapped a line in the middle.

Step 4. Get the brackets up. Mounting brackets are attached with construction adhesive, and inter locking 2 inch nails. Once they are up, they aren't coming down. Basically, if they are wrong, I'm moving.

Step 5 start making beams

The longest beams will terminate right into the angle of the ceiling. I have to use a bevel gauge on every cut, because they are all different, but I'm getting there.