New Life for the Original Ceilings

The original board and batten ceilings in Blackbird Cottage were in need of help. Structurally they were sound but cosmetically? The ceiling was stained and stinky., It needed a huge makeover. Here is how we carried out the ceiling renovation ready for painting.

Why Make Over the Ceiling?

A number of people gave us alternatives to fixing up this ceiling. They made me cringe in horror. Nobody seemed to understand the importance of preserving the history of our house. We heard everything from ‘cover it with plasterboard’ to ‘rip the whole thing out and start again’.

The ceilings in our house are original to the cottage. They were built in the board and batten style for a reason. (Possibly because it was cheaper than plaster or that plaster was not available) They are also beautiful and in extremely good condition other than being dirty and a few boards that had come loose. The modern obsession with straight walls and everything being new is not something we subscribe to. Why would we not preserve the ceiling if we could>

Cleaning the Ceiling

The first step of the ceiling renovation was to get the ceiling clean. Honestly, this was the step that filled me with the most dread. 5o years of nicotine and smoke covered every inch. It was dark brown in color and extremely smelly. I investigated a number of options to clean it but none of them seemed viable. Then a follower reached out. Her husband (a forensic cleaner by trade) put me onto Fire Restore, He talked me through how to use it over the phone. And after masking up, we cleaned the ceiling quite quickly,

The Next Steps in the Ceiling Renovation

The next thing we did was to paint the ceiling with Dulux Precision Stain Blocker. Now, there’s a couple of days of my life I won’t get back! That stuff smells and gets all over everything. But it covered the ceilings that were still yellow after cleaning.

After painting, it was time to fill the gaps. A lot of you asked if we were having a cornice around the ceiling and the answer is no. The house never had it originally. I would not fit the style. And can you imagine having to cut gaps into the lengths of cornice to fit around the battens??? Not on your life.

Instead, we came up with an ingenious plan to finish the gap between the new plaster and the ceiling. We used pine trim to mimic the battens.

As the photos above show, we used 13mm x 30mm pieces of pine and nailed them along the ceiling edge. I sanded the edges off the trim to round them and make them look older and more in keeping with the originals. After installation, I caulked the gaps and painted them to match.

We took a similar approach with the smaller spaces between the battens. For this we used trim in half width. It was pain staking to get up, measure each board individually and then nail them in place. But so worth the effort.