One Sexy Ceiling

One loaded van

After our much enjoyed time off to celebrate our anniversary, it was time to get back to work.  We came up Saturday evening with a load and then some.  I mentioned a few weeks back that I had done some bartering with the owner of a landscape nursery.  She called and said that some of the plants were ready for pick up so I made a trip over on Saturday morning.  On my way there I had to wait for a peacock to cross the road.  That was different and pretty neat.  We loaded up the van and filled nearly every cubic inch of space in the back.  And I hadn’t even loaded up the pecky cypress for the ceiling yet! 

Can’t forget the pecky cypress

Back home I moved a few things around and got the cypress and a few other things loaded up.  We arrived in between heavy rain showers and were able to get everything unloaded just as it started coming down again.  For the time being, we just set the plants near the shop and set up a sprinkler to keep them watered.  As we have time and as we get irrigation installed, we’ll start putting them in the ground.

Pecky ceiling install

Sunday morning it was go time.  We got the saws and the ladders set up and we started running the pecky cypress on the ceiling.  We finished up the first side of the ceiling around 11am and took a quick break for a snack and a few bottles of water. After resting up we got back to it and finished up the other half around mid afternoon.  One thing with pecky cypress is there are areas that you can see through the boards as there is so much material missing.  At those areas we stapled black fabric on the back side which finishes those areas off nicely.  The room is really starting to come together!  The white collar ties are now an eyesore.  They blended in before but now against the pecky backdrop, they look out of place. 

Pecky beams

After a late lunch, we started installing the faux beams.  The process went something like this: cut the steep angle on both ends.  My saws can’t cut the full thickness of the beams, so I had to cut one side, flip it over, and cut the opposite side.  Once the ends were cut and looked good, we held the beams up in place.  Once it was sitting in its happy place, we marked a scribe line on both ends and took the beams back down and recut the ends up to the scribe lines.  We did a final dry fit and then piled on the glue and nailed and glued them in place.  They look great!

Pecky molding

Last but not least was the molding around the perimeter.  You could kind of call it a crown molding but it’s just a flat piece with a chamfer on one of the edges.  It gets installed at the joint between the pecky cypress and the drywall and cleans up the edges and all of the end cuts at the gable wall.  We installed this all the way around the room and up each gable.  It really finishes the ceiling off nicely.  We cleaned up the room and then made a Home Depot run.  Good progress today. 

Ceiling fan install

Monday morning I started by installing the ceiling fan.  I’ve installed quite a few fans before, but this one kicked my butt.  That likely could have been avoided by reading the directions but whatever, live and learn.  I did a quick mock up for Oceana and she asked if we could raise it up so that it sits tighter to the beam.  So I disassembled it and modified the mounting rod to bring it as tight to the beam as possible.  I then rehung the fan body and wired it up.  When I originally ran the wiring, I wired it up with a switch for the fan and another switch for the lights.  Since it was now hooked up, I confirmed that both work.  Great. 

Two steps backwards, one step forward

I saw no pull chain for the fan speed and that’s when I realized that it’s supposed to be wired up to a remote for fan speed control.  So I unwired it, wired in the controller for the remote, and then wired it back up.  This type of installation means I no longer need a separate switch for the fan and the light.  So now there’s an extra switch in the box. Oh well.  Ok, time to mount the blades.  Something is strange here – there’s no access to the screw locations to mount the blades.  It appears that I’ll have to disassemble the upper half of the fan to get access to the blade mounting points.  That can’t be right. Ok, time to look at the directions.  That confirmed it – the fan needs to be disassembled to install the blades.  So I unwire the fan and take it down, again.  I disassemble the top half and installed the three blades and then rehung and rewired the fan, again.  Done!  Finally….

Wall sconces

Next up was the wall sconces.  I previously had just looped the wires in the wall to allow for flexibility in the final location of the lights.  With Oceana here and with the lights in hand, we held the lights in place and we located exactly where we wanted them.  I drilled a pair of 4” holes and miraculously, the wires I had ran in the wall were right there.  Perfect!  I installed a cut in box in the wall for each light and got each light mounted.  The room is now done!  All we need is curtains and a bed and we’re all set. 

Clearing out more brush

The last item for this weekend is clearing out more brush.  Last time I had cut the brush, I cut enough to fill Tom’s massive dump trailer and then I kept on cutting.  I ended up with a huge pile of brush that has been sitting there drying out.  Tom was nice enough to bring his dump trailer by again and Oceana and I got to loading it up.  We’d load a bunch of branches and then I’d climb up inside and jump up and down on it to pack it in.  We did that a few times and called it good.  There’s still more left to clear out but that will be for another day. 

Lots of good progress this weekend.  We’re looking forward to coming up again and getting more done!  Thanks for following along. 

Key Lime Cheesecake

Thanks to Tom and Kay for the bag of home grown key limes and the recipes! Oceana whipped up a magnificent key lime cheesecake using the recipe. Delicious!