Week 23: Black Ceilings are all the Rage!

Did you know that black ceilings are all the rage?

OK, so really they are not, but maybe I’ll start a new trend on this one.  Who knows?

I actually got this creative idea from my friend, Debbie, whose office/studio is in her basement.  When she set it up years ago, instead of trying to cover up her exposed ceiling, she simply painted it all black and made it look industrial.  I know you’ve seen that look in open concept restaurants, it’s been done there for years.  So, why not in your house, I say?  It works to make the ceiling disappear into the background and all that exposed wood and pipes don’t scream “look at me” nearly as much.

Here’s my laundry room/storage room ceiling before we got started.  I hired our family painter friend to paint it for me with his commercial sprayer and even with that, it was over a half day job to finish.  So glad I didn’t attempt to do it myself.   First thing I did was get a broom and knock out as many of the cobwebs as I could to get it ready to paint.  We also found out after he got started that the paint wasn’t sticking to the shiny foil stuff that you can see in the pics below.  So, we had to break out the oil based primer and quickly roll/brush on primer over the shiny tinfoil stuff.  It worked and the paint did stick!

Here’s the After!  Looks so much better, doesn’t it. 

You should have heard my dad’s comments when I told him I was painting the ceiling black. BLACK?  he said, I sure would not ever paint a ceiling black.  They were coming back in town the day I had it painted and came over to see the end of the day project.  I think he actually thought it looked good after all.

Here’s another Before pic.  You can see the shiny tinfoil to the right.  We worked so fast with the primer that I didn’t have time to get pics of it painted, but it worked.  Just wanted to warn you of that part in case you want to do this somewhere.

Here’s Jimmy the painter working hard in there with his sprayer.  These commercial sprayers are really fast and he could get the paint exactly where he wanted it.  There was some overspray on the floor and I was able to vacuum up the mist with my shop vac for the most part.  We did cover up the old fridge in there and some of the things we didn’t want paint on, so if you do this just be aware that there will be some misting of the paint that will fall below.  Jimmy had paint all over his arms and face.

And the After again.  I really love it so much better.  I’m going to tackle painting the concrete floor too as well as the walls at some point.  I’ll have to completely clean out all the stuff in  here first before I do that and it will probably happen after I move in the house.  My washer and dryer will go against that far wall to the back.  Eventually this room is going to be cute, mark my word!  I’ll come up with some creative solutions to making it look so much better.  And painting the ceiling was the first step!

Here’s the sprayer that Jimmy used.

We ended up using almost 3 gallons of paint.  I had one gallon of black left that I had bought to use on my doors, then changed those to a dark brown.  It was a satin finish.  Then I found an oops paint in a dark charcoal in semi-gloss, so we mixed those 2 together and then I had to go back and buy one more gallon of black.  All mixed together, they all worked out fine and it was covered very well in black paint.   He mixes water with the paint to spray it through this big sprayer.

Mixing it all up and getting it ready to spray. Jimmy is a family friend and a retired painter, but still does a few jobs on the side. I’ll probably hire him later on to paint the outside of my house when it’s time.

Looking into the laundry room/storage room from the back door.  There’s the cute little roof that my dad built.  I’ll get that painted out white one day.

Moving into the den area, it’s time to address those ceiling tiles.  I took down the falling apart ceiling tiles that were holding the vents, as you can see on the left.  They were completely falling apart and had to come out.  I was going to just buy a couple of new tiles to replace the vents with and call it a day.  But, as you can see from the comparison of an old and new ceiling tile, they are WAY bad.

I put one of the new ones in place.  What a difference!  The old tiles are so yellowed and dirty, I couldn’t stand it and decided that I have to go ahead and replace them now.  Even though I’m just going to go with the same commercial style tile for new ones right now, that will look SO much better.  For just over $200 I can get all new tiles and that will really make this space fresh and clean looking.  And, the good news is that we have some new Lowes projects to do and this will be one of them for October!  Yippee for Lowes!

You can also see the new track lights I had installed up in the den.  These put off a good amount of light and look decent.  Both of them came from Lowes, found them on clearance for $40 each, so they were very cost effective.

Once I get these dirty sagging old ceiling tiles down, it will be a happy day in this room.  I may even spray those grids white, we’ll see how they look when I start working on them.

You can see the den has become the dumping ground for all the extra “stuff” in the house.  I actually spend a good amount of time running up and down the stairs looking for tools and things that I’m trying to locate.  I’m sure that never happens to any of you DIYers, does it?

I can’t wait to get organized again!

Upstairs, in the master bath, I installed this light fixture myelf.  I’ve got an electrican that’s been working with me in his extra time, but he’s got limited time, so I went ahead and put this one up and the one in the guest bath.  I can handle the easy ones.  This one came from Lowes, a simple oil rubbed bronze fixture and you can choose any shades to go with it.  It was $29 and the glass seeded shades were about $6 each.  I loved seeded glass.  Since I’m replacing so many fixtures at one time, I didn’t splurge on really expensive ones right now.  I got such great deals on those Ballards fixtures in the main area of my  house and they will be the stars.  These were all very cost effective, so I figure if I want to replace some of them down the road, I don’t have a ton of money in them.  I do like them all for now just fine.

I put a simple silver toned fixture with 4 white glass shades in the guest bath.  Got this one at Cherokee Closeouts for about $35.

Hard to see it since it’s lit, but it will work out fine in here with all the silver tones in this bathroom.

My electrician installed one of the Ballard Designs stars of the show in the living room last week.  I was SO happy to see this one go up.  This is my $8 bargain, if you remember that shopping trip.

So, the only glitch with my bargain light fixture was that one arm didn’t work, but I got up there and wiggled the wires around and now it does!  I absolutely LOVE it in my living room, it truly makes the space is a wonderful addition to the lantern in the dining room. I’m so happy to have that old ceiling fan out of here and the new fixture UP.  What a difference it makes.

That was last week’s progress.  I’m still working on touching up trim paint and will be working on touching up the stairs too.  There are still so many little things to do, not to mention the deep cleaning that will have to happen before I start moving in. I want to get every single little thing done before I move in so that I don’t have to worry about it later.  That will make me feel so good when I start the moving process and know that it’s all done, at least the inside rooms.

I’ve got about  another week of work to get all those little things done and then my dad and I will tackle the kitchen subway tile backsplash.  I don’t think that one will be too hard, since we have both tiled before and we have a wetsaw.  Oh, and trimming out the kitchen window, that’s one of the things we still have to do.

Mom and Dad are in Florida right now, visiting relatives and going to a college reunion today.  Isn’t that cute?  I’m so happy they drove down to their old alma mater, Southeastern University in Lakeland, where my sister and I also went (I didn’t graduate, but went 2 years).  As soon as they get back and we can get on it, that tile will be done!

I’ll keep you posted all along the way, but I’m hoping by mid-to late October, I’ll be moving in the furniture.  Wooohooo, can’t wait!  You know how excited I’m getting for this day to get here already and I think y’all are about as excited as I am!  I had AT&T out yesterday to install my new U-verse internet and TV connections, so that is done now.  Big smiley face over that too!

One more bit of news this week!  Thanks to several of YOU brilliant people, I filled out a new toilet rebate form from my local water department and when my bill came in, I was credited with $100 towards my future bills all because I listened to y’all.  That was great advice!

Bella Rustica in Pulaski, TN was SO much fun!  I had the best time meeting up with my blog friends and also meeting some of my readers.  Several of you ladies came up and introduced yourselves and it was so great to meet you all.  I even made a new friend who is a reader and she took me on a tour of her fantastic mountain view farmhouse, which she is in the process of renovating (and yes, I’ll share some pics).  We were instant kindred souls and I so enjoyed spending time with her. You’ll hear all about my weekend later, can’t wait to share all of that too!

I am in constant awe of all the things I am privileged to do in this blogging world, it truly has changed my life in SO many huge ways and the way God keeps opening up doors and bringing so many sweet friends into my life is just so exciting!

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