{Giveaway is Closed}
The winner is #164: Lee in Ky! Congrats, Lee!
One of the last things Dad and I did before my move in date, was change out the ceiling tiles in the den. Well, most of them anyway. We still have to fix the ones where the light fixtures are attached and the ceiling vents, so there’s a little more to finish out before they are completely done. But, it’s amazing the transformation of just changing out the saggy old ceiling that was there since probably 1979, when the house was built. It was a mess up there.
Here’s the old, saggy ceiling tiles, which were very yellowed and just plain disgusting. I’m so glad I was able to change them out, they feel so fresh and clean now. Thanks to being part of Lowes Creative Bloggers team this month, we were given a giftcard to do any project we wanted to. Bingo! This was at the top of my list and I’m so grateful that I had enough to cover this. Cost for the ceiling tiles was just under $250. I think it was worth it to change them out, makes a huge difference.
I did go in and roll white ceiling paint over all the gridlines to freshen them up too.
Then, one by one, I popped out the ceiling tiles. They were very brittle from age and lots of gunk was on top of them. I wore my safety glasses to keep stuff from flying in my eyes.
My dad is a pro at giving directions, as you can imagine. 
I took them down and he toted them out of the house and stacked them up.
Me and my safety glasses.
And pretty soon we had a bare ceiling with all the duct work showing. We left up the light fixtures for now and will get those changed out soon. If the ceiling just had open wood up there, I would have considered painting it, but all the duct work is up there too, so I’d rather keep the drop ceiling for now.
There was so much debris up there that fell out every time I pulled out another one. Lots of vacuuming going on afterward.
And one by one, those ceiling tiles went back up. It’s a matter of just inserting them back into the empty space and letting them settle into place. Not hard, but takes some patience to get them all in place, since there are wires on many of the ends of the grids that you have to work around. And the ceiling tiles are a little bit fragile, so you have to take care of the edges of them.
We went back after all the big tiles went in and cut these smaller pieces. I took out the old ones and drew a template for the new ones from those. We ended up getting out the table saw and it worked well for cutting these partial tiles nice and straight. I popped them all back in one at a time.
And now I have a fresh new ceiling that looks tons better than the old. No more sagging and yellow color.
We will fill in those holes very soon and it will all be finished with clean new tiles. So glad I decided to tackle this one now instead of later. It will feel so much better. You can see the difference in color on that one to the left of the vent where the light fixture is now. Much more drab and dirty.
I love the new clean ceiling that I got with these Armstrong commercial ceiling tiles. These are just regular commercial grade 2×4’ ceiling tiles, #933 if you’re looking at the store. They were $37.00 for 5 boxes or more (contractor pricing). We used 6 boxes to complete this project.
Thanks to Lowes for supplying the giftcard for October for this updating project. It was the perfect finishing touch for my new den furniture. It will feel so much better in there now. I love being a part of Lowe’s Creative Ideas blogger team.
Here’s some great news too! Lowe’s is giving away to ONE of my readers a $100 giftcard, so you can get busy on a project of your own. Just leave a comment telling me what needs doing at your house. I’ll choose one winner at random in a few days.
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Giveaway is sponsored by Lowe’s. U.S. resident addresses only, please. I received a giftcard for my project, but was not compensated for this post and all ideas and opinions are my own.
my 20 year old house needs new paint especially in the living room and hall.
Great job on the ceiling re-do. You make it look do-able! We need new flooring in our kitchen and living room – carpeting and vinyl. This gift card would be a great start. Thanks for the chance!
We would like to make things look bright and new in the kitchen. We have the paint but first I would like to try the Giovani Granite on the counter tops. and I need new backsplash too. I would like the Gift Card for the Giovoni Granite. That would be GREAT!
I need to replace the lights on my front porch. I love Lowes selection of lights!
Rhoda, I am loving all the amazing changes to your new home, just speechless at how beautiful it all is.
I would love a gift card to Lowes so I can make some shutters for me house.
Those ceiling tiles made a HUGE difference in the look and feel of that room! I’d use a Lowe’s gift card to help with the purchase of new laminate flooring for the den and hallway.
Until we can afford a new table, I’m going to get creative with the old one. I would buy some Zinsser Primer, Paint, brushes, sponges, and cheesecloth to get started refreshing my table and chairs. Thanks for the chance at the giveaway!!!
The new ceiling tiles make such a difference – so much brighter! I would use a Lowe’s gift card either for sprucing up (paint, fixtures) my guest bathroom, or for some yard clean up and planting. We need new shrubs and some color in our yard.
Looks great! We need to do some work in our basement.
I would buy bamboo blinds for my windows in the living room. Right now they have 20+ year faux-wood yucky blinds. 🙁
Love the progress you are making on your home. The ceiling tiles look great…nice and bright! Good job!
i really want to replace my carpet with hard wood floors or add some board and batten to my entry way!
Your ceiling looks so good!
We are preparing to gut our family and re-do it all. A gift card would really help!
Wow Rhonda – what a difference – it’s so much cleaner and brighter! Great job! I never thought about all of the dust and debris you’d find overhead! Yuck! We have an big job ahead with our home – we need to lay 6 mil ‘construction film’ as a cover over the dirt floor in the crawl space of our home. It’ won’t be easy since we have to ‘army crawl’ down there, but it should help with our daughter’s allergies and asthma, and also with the ‘earthy smell’ we are constantly battling. I just learned about the product or we would have worked towards budgeting for this long ago – I’m really hoping it works! Lowes has a great brand called ‘Blue Hawk’ so a gift card would really help with that purchase – not a ‘pretty’ project, but it needs to be done!
Always a project to do…we started turning a portion of the basement into a family room but still need to trim, add a door, carpet, etc. There are plenty of places that need fixin’. 🙂
Hi Rhoda. Those new ceiling tiles really do freshen up the space, don’t they? We’re moving back home after many years away. Renters have been in our house, so I think there will be plenty of painting to do to clean up the walls and introduce some nice new soft colors. We’ll probably buy paint with the Lowe’s gift card!
1963 Bathroom remodel! Uggghhh! This gift card would be AWESOME!
I am about to change some fence boards in my backyard. The $100 gift card would certainly help!! Thanks for the opportunity to win.
I am hoping to create a cute playroom space in the basement for my kids. I would like to warm up the space by putting down carpet tiles.
I really need to do some landscaping! We tore out all of our bushes in front of our house and never replaced them. So sad looking now!
Wow, where do I begin? I have so many projects that are filed away in my head. 🙂 I definitely want to build wooden lockers for our kiddos now before it gets too cold. I also want to paint our brown wooden kitchen cabinets cream soon. Thank you for the chance to win this gift card. I have loved following your renovations on your new home. It is beautiful!