Where can I find 3/4" bead board for a ceiling in Minnesota for $1.50/sq.ft.?

April 9, 2009 9:59 PM

I'm finishing my house and want to install 3/4" bead board ceiling and in all the places that I look for install help and instruction(this old house, hgtv.com, oldhouseweb.com, etc) people are quoting $1-1.50/sq. foot. Does anyone know where in MN I can find quality 3/4" bead board ceiling for that price, everything i'm finding is $3-4 from specialty mills, and the stuff priced around $1/sq at the big box stores(Home Depot, Lowes and Menards) is for the thinner wall stuff, and is usually VERY poor quality with lots of knots. I just watched this video at HGTV and they put up some pretty nice looking stuff and quoted $1.50/sq I don't believe it one bit...
posted by Mesach to home & garden (7 comments total)

I don't know anyone offhand for anything like that. I would start at Lumber Liquidators though for cheapness. They have a lot of stuff like that. It's mostly flooring, but it never hurts to ask.
posted by sanka at 10:12 PM on April 9

The beadboard they installed in the linked video is milled from solid wood. You can't buy decent flat boards for that price, let alone boards that have been milled to a specialized profile like beadboard. So I'd say that the $1.50/SF claim is bullshit.

If they'd said $1.50 per LINEAR foot, that would make more sense. The boards look like they're about 6" wide, so $1.50/LF=$3/SF.
posted by jon1270 at 3:42 AM on April 10 [1 favorite has favorites]

Also, I just Googled "this old house" beadboard square foot and the very first hit, a tutorial on installing a beadboard porch ceiling, estimates $5-$6 per square foot.
posted by jon1270 at 4:11 AM on April 10

Whether you go with the 3/4 or the 5/16 be aware that the boards shrink, which will create gaps between the boards on your ceiling if you put them up "right out of the package." Unwrap the boards and let them sit in the room where they're to go for a few weeks before you put them up.

The 5/16 will be much easier to handle, to put up. Yes, there are a lot of flaws, but it will come down to not being able to use about 1 board per package (in the 5/16). And you'll find other uses for it -- kindling, bird houses...

Inspect the wood (in the packages) at the store and pick the packages that look the best. Check the edges of the boards, not just the knots: a bad edge is more likely to make the board "scrap."
posted by RichardS at 4:14 AM on April 10

two cheaper solutions: beadboard-looking plywood (making the joints between the plywood pieces look good is the tricky part), or maybe some sort of engineered flooring - I saw a ceiling (admittedly cathedral and 3+m high) covered in *laminate* that looked pretty darn good (and how much time will others spend scrutinizing your ceiling?)
posted by youchirren at 4:56 AM on April 10

On my house the area under the eaves is bead board. When we redecked and reshingled our roof we redid the bead board with the stuff from Home Despot, et al. What we found was that it made since to go to every hardware store / lumber yard in St. Louis until we found one that had material that wasn't knotty and warped. I'm not sure what we were paying but I think it was less than $3 per square foot.

Generally I'd steer clear of wood in sealed plastic packages. Also, kind of what Richard said, but.... If it's really humid when you put them up, expect gaps when its really dry. BUT, if it's really dry when you put them up, and you put them up really tight, expect really bad things to happen when it gets humid. If you look at old breadboard end tables, you can find a lot of them that have torn themselves apart when the humidity changed. A lot of those ebony splines and plugs in Greene and Greene furniture actually hide screw based sliding joints for exactly this reason. You can reduce this a bit by applying your finish to the wood (both sides) prior to putting it up, then just touch it up in place.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 6:31 AM on April 10

I used the thin stuff that came in packages for wainscoting, and it looks way better than the scored plywood or pressed masonite. The pressed masonite wasn't all that cheap, though it looks better than scored plywood. I primed and painted mine, and accepted the fact that it's got lots of knots and dings. It's been up a year or so, and looks great. It goes up with 'liquid nails,' so it's pretty easy.
posted by theora55 at 1:28 PM on April 10