I have been considering options for repairing my kitchen/dining room ceiling for a long time. I am laid off from work so have the time, but little money, so am trying to do it very cheaply. What I found is some solid pine beaded planks at menards, on sale so it will only cost about .40 cents/SF for materials, plus paint. My question is a little complicated so bear with me. This an old house that's been added onto a couple times and finding the joists is about impossible, I've tried my studfinder, and dug around in the attic, but whoever did the additions was very creative to say the least so that finding the joists to nail to would be at mininum a nightmare, and at worst impossible. So, I was wondering if I could get away with just nailing the planks to the sheetrock ceiling. I know this is not the right way to do it, but would it work? The planks are only 1/4 inch thick, and I would face nail them about every foot or so with my finish nailer, at an angle to get a little more bite. The sheetrock I would be nailing to is secure, and pretty thick, so I think it would work, I just wanted a second or even a third opinion. Thanks for any advice you may have.

Doug

 

Welcome to the forums! Yeah, you have the worst of situations not finding the joisting. I would opt for a PL adhesive on each plank and one of your angle nails on the tongue end. The groove end will hold itself via the tongue of the adjacent piece. The glue will hold it, the nail will hold until the glue dries.

 

Thanks Chandler,
Yeah, I was planning on using some adhesive as well. The concern I have is that the ceiling is textured, by someone that apparently didn't really know what they were doing. The texture is cracked and peeling in a couple of places, maybe 3 or 4 SF out of 360 SF total, so I didn't want to count on just the adhesive holding it. If the paint and texture falls, so does the paneling. I guess I just want someone to confirm that's it's not a really stupid thing to do. I'm far from being a newbie when it comes to home improvement, but sometimes I don't trust my own judgement.

Another question I have is wether to prime and or paint the back side of the planks. I read somewhere that you need to to prevent moisture from coming down through the wood and bubbling the paint, but is that necessary when it's going over painted sheetrock? Thanks again

Doug

 

You might try driving a nail or drilling a small hole to locate the joists. Once you have found one, you should be able to find the others [either 16" or 24" on center]

Priming the backside never hurts although I doubt it would be necessary in a kitchen. You'd need to scrape some of the texture off for the adhesive to be effective.