Now that the ceiling in the great room was down, Chris met me at the house to start work on it. It was July 7th. Chris frequently shares his admiration for the framing that was done (that’s sarcasm, BTW). With the joists and rafters in full view he was not afraid to point out further concerns and what would be required to put a new ceiling up that would give me the look I wanted. During that discussion I brought up the idea of doing a coffered ceiling. I really like that look and thought it might hide any inconsistencies that might show up due to unevenness between the joists. Chris agreed, but said it would cost a fortune to hire someone to do it. So we talked about me doing it. He showed me how to frame boxes from 2x2s that would support the drywall that would be the skin of the coffers. We created a quick and dirty one and hung it so I could see the approach. I was to do the perimeter first, then fill in the middle after that.

Over the next two days I picked up a load of material to start creating boxes. I refined the boxes to use minimal wood with spacers that would limit the twisting that the 2x2s are inclined to do. After a few attempts, I came up with a design I liked that was light weight and strong. I put together a little assembly area in the master bedroom because I was going to be making a lot of these.

Final Box Design

At this stage I moved into full production and started working my way around the perimeter.

Perimeter Progressing

By July 17th, I had most of the perimeter framed and started on my first straight run away from the perimiter. That run took four boxes to complete, but it was pretty cool to see it up, as it gave me my first inkling of how the coffers would look. Sorry for the fuzziness of the picture, but that’s the only one I have. Had I known I was going to create this blog, I would have been more careful.

First Run down the Middle

On July 18th I completed the second long run and finished the perimeter. It was getting really exciting at this point. I was feeling more confident that this would come together.

Second Run Done

On July 20th (happy 60th, Dale!) I started on the cross members. On July 21st, it looked like this:

I finished the framing on July 24th.

Framing Complete

In reality, I wasn’t done with the framing because I was not happy with the area in front of the entrance to the master bedroom. I originally had a straight angled piece, but it did not align with the angle of the entrance, so I reworked it later on.

Misaligned Angles

During my initial discussions with Chris, I mentioned my preference for wooden coffers with a reveal (you’ll see) instead of drywall. He encouraged me to use drywall due to the cost savings, but as the framing progressed he reconsidered the idea of using wood. I suspect he was feeling a bit more confident in my abilities. I was keen on that idea, and we also decided to use tongue and groove between the coffers. So that required some time to get the materials picked out and delivered. 18 1x6s and 28 1x10s of 16 foot pre-primed finger pine arrived July 31st.