Porch Ceiling

When we first bought this house we realized that the "unfinished" space in the attic was not required to have insulation?  Even though it shared the same attic space.  WTF???  Well our electric bill was nuts so Gary rolled batting insulation all over the covered porch.  AND.... he stepped through the ceiling.  I attempted to repair it and wanted to put wood over it.  Well 8 years later we are getting around to "fixing" it right.

We took down the lights and the ceiling fans.

We also purchased scaffolding from Northern tools, it was on sale, $159 from $439.  They also had some cheaper but we liked to quality of this for the price.

I stained this and we grossly underestimated the amount needed.  The porch ended up being 581 square feet.  We thought that it was 560, that was not the problem.  Gary thought the boards were 6" wide, but they actually are only 5" wide in coverage.  So three 12 foot long boards are only covering 24 square feet.  Well, just a hair over 24 but there is waste no matter how hard you try not to have any.  SO 3 boards for 24 square feet is a very good way to calculate the coverage. I had to make another run to Home Depot and get more boards.

Another note... Even with 12 foot long boards it goes a lot slower than you would think.

By the last light opening I was a pro at working the jigsaw.  I spliced the boards together along the cuts.  Getting one cut to line out was hard enough trying to get four in one board is out of my skill set.  And I don't have the time or energy to even get upset by that.  So I cut one opening in one section of board not caring how long the sections ended up being.  Also this allowed me to use up some of the cut boards.  We found that the board would have to be cut for various reasons from size to so warped that we had to cut them down.

Because I am "me" I needed a break and I need to do something that I would see in instant reward.  So I decided that the can light inserts needed to be painted.  They were rusting and the white stuck out like a sore thumb.  So I painted them.

Then back to the grind... Day 4.  I felt this was never going to be done.

Okay I always admit that I am not sure how the "pros" do something but this is how I did it.  Well this corner is one of those moments.

I decided to draw the corner out and cut.

Then I dry fit it into place.

Then I took a screw driver and removed the back tongue off the longest board.  It was still going to hit two studs when nailed up.  So I didn't feel loosing the tongue on that board was a big deal.  I then just lifted the entire triangle into place and nailed it up.

Tada.

Can lights up.

Finding the angles for the quarter round was a pain in the azz. But I am happy that I took the time to do it right.  I didn't want a heavy trim piece I liked the stucco cap piece I thought it added another layer of detail.  I debated on the cove piece over the quarter round and the price was the deciding factor.  It was only $62 for the quarter round over 149 for the cove.

Finally finished.

Now to just clean up the mess and put it back together.  I am going to paint the concrete floor first.