Kitchen Ceiling and Lighting Details -

It all started about a year ago when I decided to finally update our kitchen. {click on over and check out the before pics of the kitchen – even I didn’t remember how dark and dated it looked} Not too long after we started, hubby and I took a day trip to Dallas, and of course stopped in at IKEA. New kitchen lighting was on my list, because I knew they had less expensive options. I was leaning towards some sort of track lighting to replace our hideous fluorescent lighting in the kitchen. And then we spotted these.

source – IKEA

They were the perfect length, had lots of lights, and a big enough cover in the center to cover the existing holes that I knew would be left behind by the current fixtures. And…the price was fantastic! – $29.99

I wasn’t sure about the silver finish, or the super-modern look, but the price and size just couldn’t be beat. The bad news–they only had one in stock that day!! And, I needed three. I left very defeated. I looked into ordering them online, and really the shipping wasn’t bad – about the same as gas to drive down there and back, but I just never got around to it.

Fast forward to last month, when one of my precious friends mentioned she was heading to Dallas, and making a trip to IKEA. IKEA, I said, I love that store, and I told her my lighting story. And then, bless her, she offered to pick up whatever I wanted!! (Thanks Angela!!) So, that my friends is how I scored my modern-inexpensive-way better than fluorescent- kitchen lighting!!

We first started by ripping out the old. And we were left with this ugliness.

My hubby decided to remove two of the three lights (which btw weren’t working anyway???). And we had this.

I had my plan for the ceiling, but had no idea the sides of the inset were popcorn – ugh. So, rather than scraping that off, or painting over it, I pulled some beadboard from my scrap pile, held it up over the sides and voila! Perfect! And it tied in with the beadboard on the backsplash!!

We attached the beadbaord to the sides with a little liquid nails and finishing nails into as many studs as we could.

From previous planking experience, I knew it was necessary to paint the ceiling for imperfection purposes. I did not want to see white popcorn in between those boards.

Then we found the ceiling joists and started planking, using the same wood we used on our rustic kitchen island. We nailed the boards into the studs, staggering the sizes of the boards along the way.

We installed the light fixtures as we went. Mostly because we wanted to see what it was going to look like!! You know, then if I hated it I could tear it down and start over! Ha!

When that was all finished…the last board!!

And the lights were all in place

I used some molding to trim out the beadboard, caulked to fill in all the cracks and imperfections, and lastly painted the beadboard and molding. I used corner round in the corners, and a chair-rail molding around the bottom edge.