The wood ceiling in the great room and master bedroom is 1×6 clear mixed-grain hemlock. I had it prefinished, so the finish carpenters just pin nailed it in place, filled the nail holes. It’s then done. No one has to get up there again. This material is not cheap: $1.72/linear foot for the material and $0.67/linear foot for clear finish. So, this comes out to about $5.50/sq-ft of finished ceiling for material, including about 10% waste. My finish carpenter, Eric Epps, first stapled up black landscape fabric (cheap). I had him leave a 3/8″ gap between boards. This gives a nice linear effect. Everyone loves this ceiling.
Note that I discovered that the “sag rods” which hung from the ridge down to the horizontal tie rods were not supporting any weight of the tie rods. I didn’t like them in the first place, so had Eric and Spencer take them down. We now have just nice clean horizontal tie rods with no vertical elements. They don’t sag noticeably.
A week later I’m giving a tour to Baubilt readers and Park City residents Mike and Sarah Boyer. You can see the finished ceiling above. It came out great.
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Hi. I love your hemlock ceiling. We are planning this type of ceiling for a sunroom and would like to know what sort of finish (stain and clear coat) you used. We would be using select pine because it fits our budget. I think it could still look great. Please let me know what you used for color and sheen. Thanks very much and beautiful work! Rob.
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We had this material pre-finished by the supplier. That takes some time out of the schedule, and on a high cathedral ceiling is probably pretty cost effective relative to having the painters do it. It is just clear satin. It’s so far up there, I don’t think it matters much. I also suspect the select pine will look nice. Mostly when in the room, your eyes just read “light wood up there.” The ceiling is definitely not the place to spend a lot on material, in my opinion.
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Thanks for the reply. And again you do beautiful work!
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