WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER CHANGE THE CEILING

Kay has wanted to turn our upstairs hall into a photo gallery. She has many really nice pictures and I think a place to display them might encourage her to do even more. So we planned a simple, quick upgrade to the hall. Painting would be simple and wainscoting at the bottom would be an easy way to cover a few defects. The big requirements would be to upgrade the lighting, replace the four ugly old doors that line that part of the hall and replace the unsightly ceiling.

Leveling the old ceiling would require a lot of wood that would never be seen. What a waste! But wait, if I take this opportunity to tear the guest bedroom apart, I would have lots of discarded wood from the moldings around the windows and doors. I could cut that to size and use it in the foundation for the ceiling.

But, that means the paneling would have to come down and be thrown away. What a waste! But wait, I could use that paneling to redo the closets in the hall and in the guest room. I could also add lights to both closets. And what a great time to add additional shelving and perhaps a shoe tree. Perfect.

But if I am going to do all that in the guest room, what a great time to rebuild the bookcase and desk and add that file cabinet I have always wanted to incorporate. And I could rewire the ceiling light and build it into the cornice molding that I will now need. But if I am going to do all that, I need good walls, so I might as well replace the guest room walls. Plus what a great time to turn the window sills into something special. And, we might as well do something extraordinary with the walls while we’re at it.

But wait!! If the entire upstairs is going to be a mess anyway, we might as well strip that one wall in the bathroom and repaper it. We really have been putting that off and now is the time. But if the molding all has to come down so we can repaper, why not replace that ugly ceiling while we are at it? And, if we are going to do that, now is the time to pull the toilet out and repair the floor. But wait!! If the toilet has to come out anyway, why not tear out the old floor and replace the entire thing with a solid one piece plywood underlayment?

Soooooo – I spent all day today sorting through the three tons of wood that was delivered yesterday, so I would not waste money buying wood to replace the ceiling.