Coffered Ceilings – How to Install Coffering to Jazz Up Your Ceiling
There are basically two reasons why you might want to install a coffered ceiling in your home:
Coffering adds a lot of visual interest to what is normally just a flat, white surface.
It can hide a host of existing problems, such as cracks, popped nails, chipping or peeling paint, even sagging.
And while true coffering – the installation of one or more recessed panels in a ceiling – can be a difficult and involved process, the kind of simulated coffering I am talking about can be almost ridiculously easy. Let’s take a look and see what I mean.
Fake coffering involves nothing more than installing a wooden frame on your ceiling, set in a foot or so from the walls. In its simplest form, it could be four pieces of molding, mitered at the corners.
But for a look of greater depth and interest, you’d probably want to build the coffering up in two or more layers, so it looks like a single, large “composite” molding, by working with ordinary flat boards and smaller stock moldings.
Your first step is to design the cross section for your composite molding. The easiest way to do this is to go to the lumber yard and look over the assortment of available moldings and lumber. Buy a few feet of anything that catches your eye.
Then take it all home and play with it, building up short sections of composite molding until you get something you like. You can make the cross section symmetrical or asymmetrical.
Once you have decided on a design, work out the size and position of the coffering on the ceiling. I mentioned earlier that the coffer frame is normally set in a foot or so from the walls, but this distance is flexible.
Experiment by snapping chalk lines to outline the position of your molding on the ceiling. Make sure these lines run parallel to the walls.
Once you have decided on your composite and your layout, you are ready to buy your lumber and moldings. Measure the size of your frame, add up all the pieces needed, and head to the lumber yard again. Try to buy stock that’s long enough to avoid splices.
You can approach the installing of your coffering in two ways. One is to assemble your composite moldings before you put them up on the ceiling. You nail and glue up all the parts for each side of your frame. Then you miter each end and install the coffering like four big pieces of picture-frame molding.
The other way is to assemble the molding layer by layer on the ceiling.
Which method is better? I like the first. It’s easier and less tiring, simply because it’s more comfortable to assemble a bunch of parts on a bench or on the floor than it is overhead.
But an advantage of the second method is that it lets you experiment with your design as you go, so you can make changes if you like.
Start by locating the positions of the joists in your ceiling. These will run across the ceiling in one direction, and they are normally spaced 16 inches apart, center to center. Try to fasten your coffering to these joists wherever possible.
This will be easy with the two sides of your coffer frame that run perpendicular to the joists. You can just nail or screw these in place wherever they cross a joist.
But the frame parts running parallel to the joists are another matter. Chances are they will fall between joists, where you’ll have nothing solid to fasten to. So here’s a good way around this problem:
Start by installing the parts that run parallel to the joists. Miter their ends, then take one section and jam it in position against the ceiling with two or more scraps of wood cut to the same length as your ceiling height.
Every 16 inches or so, drill through the molding into the ceiling. Take the molding down and redrill the holes in the ceiling to accept heavy-duty molly bolts.
Install the mollies in the ceiling. Run a serpentine bead of paneling adhesive down the back of your molding and bolt it in place.
Repeat this operation with the opposite side of your coffer. Now cut and fit the two remaining sides. Screw these directly to the joists, using screws long enough to penetrate 2 inches into the joists. Most lumber yards now stock tough Phillips-head screws in lengths up to 6 inches. You can drive these quite easily with a Phillips bit in a variable speed drill.
Once the coffer frame is up, fill over any screw heads with water putty. Fill any gaps and cracks with a latex caulk. Then sand lightly, with 120 paper, and paint. Start with a coat of primer; then follow with two coats of enamel in the color of your choice.
If the ceiling you are coffering is in bad shape, you might want to cover the area inside the coffer with new drywall. Or, for greater visual interest, use sections of embossed tin ceiling material.
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Tags: ceiling, ceiling tiles, coffered ceilings