That's right..a ceiling flip project!
This one was a time consuming doozy and "Ouch my wallet!"
It all started with a leaky skylight.
The leak started as a small drip during heavy rain. A drip so small, I assumed it was just the terrible condensation normal in Japan's jungle climate. I seriously mean jungle too. Jungle as in, where's Mowgli?
Over the years, these drips on the floor grew into little puddles. Definitely a leaky skylight! We went to roofing companies to see if it could be fixed and these guys said everything but, yes.
We pretty much only heard "We can caulk it, but no promises." and "We can change it out, but need to replace the roof."
Lucky for us, we found Mr. Miyagi. I swear to you, his name is Mr. Miyagi! Swear!
That dude isn't Mr. Miyagi...just some non-Mr. Miyagi dude. I shouldn't say it like that..he was actually awesome. An old school Japanese builder who works alongside Miyagi. We hired Miyagi's company do a lot of work on the house.
We had the house:
-Painted
-Roof fixed
-Skylight removed
-Roof painted
-Soffit replaced
-Old wiring panels removed back when this place was an office building
-Air conditioner pipes covered
-Work done to an exterior wall
-Termite treatment
-Under the floor storage installation.
That's a lot of stuff! I will be blogging about it all in the future. Anyway, back to the skylight. It's so old, there's no replacement available and installing a different size is out of the budget. We decided to just have the opening patched.
The only downside to having the skylight patched is our style of roof shingle isn't available anymore. The end result: It's not too noticeable, because the roof has been painted, but it kind of bothers me.
This is a normal kind of thing I deal with in Japan. Stuff not being available anymore. Our house is 40+ years old, but c'mon...you cant find these shingles anywhere in the country? The size of this skylight has never been made again?
I painted all of the hallways in my house sand grey and the color was discontinued the next year. Some home centers will try to match paints, but I had the sand grey matched and it was a shade darker. Who called me a whiner?
The skylight was successfully removed and patched! I even got an eleven year guarantee! Mr. Miyagi and crew are dope!!
I'm faced with a new problem now. No skylight equals no light! This hallway went from having natural light to being haunted house dark all day long. Those lovely little hanging stained glass pendants need to go!
Do you want to ROTFL? I went through a pipe lights phase..HEY! I'm not proud of it and don't tell anyone, but..I still have pipe lights over the upstairs sink. No, you're crazy!
I ditched the pipe lights and made this gnarly stained glass light. I love how it looks up there, but it's not bright enough. Kind of as bright as me watching Jeopardy.
The ceiling flip project begins! The goal is bright and colorful!
The ceiling was wallpapered and if you've ever removed wallpaper, you know it SUCKS! Especially removing it from a ceiling. Yuck! It took a week and a billion curse words to get it all down. I removed just enough wallpaper to install some thin wood panels and the new lights to get an idea of how it'll look. After sealing these areas of the ceiling, I installed the panels and lights. I'm going for a kind of shiplap look.
I almost wore a pirates costume.
The holes for the new twist lock sockets.
They need supports, so the don't twist out of the ceiling. Check out the jigsawed circle! The ceiling is drywall and the supports are attached to ceiling joists. That wood circle is the base for the socket. I had to go up into the ceiling to do the supports and wiring.
I'm terrified of going up in there! Ya know..because of ghost and monsters and stuff.
I don't even know if this is called a twist lock socket, but they're standardized in Japan. Really user friendly but ugly! You don't see decorative lighting either. As for ceiling lights Japanese people like ubiquitous, dome-shaped, light fixtures that take up most of the ceiling. Some decorative fixtures are available, but don't look very nice connected to these sockets.
I went with these little LED natural light domes and I love em'! The ceiling went up pretty easy, but sanding it was pretty tough. I had a tough time holding up my orbital sander even with all of these gigantic muscles.
The finished ceiling, lights and trim.
Look at all of the wood putty I used to fill in the screw holes. I sanded all of that by hand....HAND! I need to stop being so cheap and upgrade my power sanders. The dust bag won't stay on the one I have if its turned upside down.
Meh, I'll buy one next time.
I thought about staining the ceiling first, like maybe a dark brown or deep red. I promised myself bright and colorful, so I went with a semi-gloss white!
Why semi-gloss? I wanted the ceiling to reflect back some of the lights. I played with different shades of whites and darker colors on the walls, but went white on everything! The entire hallway is white with one colorful accent wall. I'm super happy with it and my wife Mariko loves it!
Caulking is important for a nice finish! You want to get all of the spaces and gaps you can. I used painters tape in the areas where I didn't want the caulk to get on the wood.
The finished ceiling! I am a fan!
Who said it looks like the inside of an actual ship?