Ceiling & Drywall Progress: the first bay has the beadboard plywood installed & they have added drywall to the wall
Andi and Neil’s kitchen is still in the not so exciting to look at phase. The contractors should be there all week which is good news! The ceiling is partially done. They ran into a small hiccup, the the old florescent light that is providing temporary light is hooked into the old knob and tube wiring. They are getting ready to disconnect this, but the new lighting has not arrived yet. So they can’t finish the rest of the ceiling until the new lights arrive. Fortunately they should be here today (fingers crossed). They have installed the 1×8 trim piece around the top of the ceiling. I had them put this in to make sure any uneven wall conditions would be covered up. We will be adding 3 “beams” at approximately 4′ intervals. Not only will this provide visual interest but it will give us a place to seam the beadboard. Most beadboard paneling comes in 8′ lengths (although you can get longer 3/4″ thick pine beadboard pieces in up to 12′ lengths). The kitchen is about 9 1/2′ wide (so we couldn’t run the beadboard in that direction). The 4 “bays” that are left are designed to have lights centered in them (except for the one over the fridge). We centered the bays such that the light over the sink could also be centered in the bay. It is always a little tricky to get the beadboard spacing right. Unless you have a perfectly symmetrical room you usually have to decide what takes precedence. In our Dining Room we centered the ceiling on the room (and the light fixture) but our windows were not centered on the room, so they don’t align with the ceiling. Andi & Neil’s case is similar. The door openings and opening to the sunroom don’t align with the panels but the lights will all look nicely centered in the ceiling.
The beams will be created out of a 2×4 and then covered with a 1×4 piece of mdf or poplar. Then crown molding will cover the sides. It is a pretty simple system that provides a lot of interest.
It looks exciting to me! Things seem to be progressing efficiently and the surprises to date seem to all be manageable. Hang in there Andi & Neil…I see the promise of a really great kitchen in the latest shots (and Heidi’s wonderful plan).