After 4 intense sessions with the paint sprayer, roughly 12 gallons of Kilz latex primer followed by 3 gallons of ceiling paint...
I am pleased as punch to report. IT TOTALLY WORKED!
So for anybody out there Googling: "Can you paint a basement ceiling with a paint sprayer?"
YES. YOU. CAN.
After a long journey (demo, patching & sanding, wiring, priming & painting) the underside of the bungalow pine flooring has successfully become a "finished" basement ceiling. Everything including the floor joists, exposed ductwork and pipes have been coated with a bright clean white.
The end result is a nice mix of clean industrial loft meets eclectic summer cottage. I've always wanted to try a white painted floor, but I like this better because (in theory) I won't ever have to get down on my hands and knees to scrub it clean.
The assorted pipes and ductwork recede a bit into the all white background. Overall the basement ceiling feels open. lighter, brighter and significantly less dungeon-like.
Yay for PAINT!
Congrats! It looks great.
ReplyDeleteI agree: dungeon out, cottage in. It's really nice!
ReplyDeleteYEA!!!! congrats on the job well DONE!!!
ReplyDeleteYay for paint! I love the combo of wood, pipes and duct. It really looks fantastic!
ReplyDeleteIt looks fantastic! Congrats for a huge job finished :-)
ReplyDeleteThe basement ceiling inspires a sing-a-long to Edelweiss.
ReplyDelete"Small and white clean and bright
You look happy to meet me"
Looks Fabulous!
ReplyDeleteIt looks beautiful! Makes me wish I had a basement!
ReplyDeleteLooks great ~ can't wait to see everything in it :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited to find your blog! We are just starting to make some decisions on finishing our basement. I think I'm going to steal your painted pine boards for the ceiling idea.
ReplyDeleteMy husband has been trying to convince me to buy a paint sprayer for the longest time! :) Good to know it is done!
ReplyDeleteOMG I just saw this now. What a great idea. I may have to do this in our basement (or part of) to keep the height when we refinish it.
ReplyDeleteWow! That is amazing! We just bought our converted bungalow in May (have to explain what a bungalow is to 90% of my friends) and my BF is working on a man cave. He installed can lights in the basement but the dark pine ceiling is so gloomy. This is a great idea!!
ReplyDeletejust found your blog! the ceiling looks amazing! will be keeping this in mind if we ever tackle our basement! thanks for the inspiration!
ReplyDeleteI want to do this to our basement ceiling but we have a mess of wires and hot water pipes ( hot water heat) how did you get yours to look so orderly? Did you have a plumber and electrician re-run everything? thanks!
ReplyDeletewww.collegehillrenovation.com
Just came across your fabulous blog! Painting my bungalow basement ceiling has been a project on my home to do list for quite awhile. I'm so excited to see how well your ceiling looks!!!! Absolutely awesome! I second the question that Rachel asked. I would love to know how you went about rerunning your wiring and water pipes before you painted the ceiling, or was that even an issue for you?
ReplyDeleteRachel & Jovee:
ReplyDeleteSo sorry for the delayed response to your questions. Things have been crazy around here lately.
The bulk of our plumbing & electrical runs across once section of the basement (about 8 ft x 11 ft). We were able to enclose this smaller section with a thin pine plank ceiling attached directly to the floor joists and painted in the same shade of white as the open floor joists.
Any remaining exposed pipes and HVAC ducts in the "open" section of the basement were painted white with the sprayer so they recede back into the white of the ceiling.
A more detailed explanation with photos will be posted at some point in the future when I finally get around to blogging about the completed basement renovation. Hopefully after the bathroom remodel is complete and blogged about as well.
Thanks for visiting & please feel free to let me know if you have any additional questions!
Very inspiring! My husband and I plan to do the same thing this weekend....
ReplyDeletehow big was this room?
ReplyDeleteApproximately 11' x 33'
ReplyDeleteI'm about to start the demo at my house for this same project. I'm concerned that WHITE will be so hard to get to look good. I'm considering a dark color as hiding imperfections better... black? Your thoughts? How hard was it - HOW MUCH Kilz??!! Wow. You must have painted and painted to get rid of stains showing through??
ReplyDeleteDo not do black, actually white is better at hiding imperfections. also, if you use black or a dark color, spiders love these dark colors to blend in. I painted my basement joists white also using Kilz primer and Kilz latex on the joists and c-block walls, all white. it looks amazing, modern and clean with some nice carpet and accent colors. white ceilings and light colors walls in a basement will drive the spiders else where, they hate the brightness.
ReplyDeleteStopped by from google after searching for white basement ceilings! Love the look! Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this, it helped change my mind from an "invisible" black ceiling to a white one. I have been painting our basement which is about 1400 square feet. Advice I can give:
ReplyDelete-Buy an airless spray gun.
-Don't use kilz, buy contractor grade (water/latex) primer in 5 gallon buckets. Works better and a lot cheaper.
-Cover everything, paint get everywhere!
-Expect to put on at least 3 coats of primer, the combination of dry wood soaking up the paint and sap showing through makes it pretty difficult to cover up.
I'm curious about how heat resistant the latex primer & paint are on the heating ducts. I suggested we do this to my husband since our basement ceilings are so low, but being the code-fearing HVAC tech he is said we'd probably have to use a hi-temp grade paint to be 'safe' (safe from what, martians? radioactive off gassing? musical elves?). Don't industrial type buildings always have their ducts and whatnots painted?
ReplyDeleteLooks really great!
What type of paint did you use? semi gloss, high gloss?
ReplyDeleteWhat type of paint did you use? semi gloss, high gloss?
ReplyDelete