It’s no secret that I’m a fan of excellent, pure wooden paneling. The truth is, I discuss a lot about my love of natural-toned wooden, I’m pretty sure Google simply robotically redirects any search inquiries about it straight to my website (I want). Earlier than diving into the nitty-gritty of the ceilings in this residence, let me remind you of how we remodeled the mountain home ceiling. Does walnut blasting ring any bells? In case you don’t recall or weren’t a reader throughout these days, we discovered a lot from that course of, together with simply what number of totally different media varieties could possibly be used to “blast” the wooden right down to its pure grain. We ended up going the walnut route (which regarded bizarre TBH, so we redid the tongue and groove), however there’s silica sand, corn cob, ice and baking soda, every with its personal depth.
In case you missed yesterday’s publish, I launched a really enjoyable seven-week, no-reno kitchen transform we did for a reader right here in Portland. The house was nice however wanted some refreshing…the ceiling being one of many large ticket objects. Because it’s been about 5 years since we shot walnut shells on the mountain home ceiling, a brand new blasting method popped up on my radar and I used to be desirous to attempt to give it a go. The ceilings right here jogged my memory of one among my much less profitable spraytans – orange, shiny and never pure in any respect. They had been a lot, MUCH shinier in particular person TBH. These wooden ceilings wanted a 2023 revamp to seek out to their pure, properly tanned, non-orange state. We had been going for a cheerful, candy vintage-inspired kitchen, and people shiny planks wanted to go.
As you could keep in mind, a small a part of me was upset within the texture we had been left with on the mountain home after walnut blasting (it regarded each pink and orange). My hope was that with a unique method, the blasting course of would depart much less proof behind (aka an excessive amount of texture). Ideally, the look we had been going for right here was fairly much like my authentic imaginative and prescient for the mountain home–a softer, lighter-toned uncooked wooden that felt up to date but timeless.
The objective for this kitchen ceiling was to take away the lacquer end and with it (hopefully) the orange tone of the wooden. As I stated, the ceiling had nice bones, with tongue-and-groove paneling and a few strong beams, however to ensure that it to mesh nicely with our new design course and coloration palette, the gloss simply HAD to go.
From my analysis, dry-ice blasting appeared like it might match the invoice. It’s non-toxic and *claims* to be nonabrasive (extra on that later) or not less than gentler than many of the choices on the market. It leaves nearly no mess both, which is at all times one thing to contemplate when working in another person’s residence. The machine is certainly loud prefer it was with walnut blasting and regardless of it not leaving a lot of a hint when it comes to particles, the realm nonetheless needed to be taped off and lined in plastic for defense. On the whole, dry-ice blasting is usually used for pressurized cleansing, however virtually the entire corporations we reached out to assured us it might be an incredible option to take away the end on this wooden ceiling. This was not me simply guessing, the professionals urged this.
So I had my staff contact just a few corporations to collect some quotes and a greater understanding of the method. Prices had been fairly comparable throughout the board for this roughly 300-square-foot room, all coming in at round $4,000. The method requires a variety of gear and securing the correct quantity of dry ice or liquid CO2 relying on the machine. Fortunately this quantity was doable inside the venture finances, nevertheless it’s undoubtedly a bit of spendy for a room this measurement.
The crew we employed was assured of their course of but nonetheless opted to do a take a look at spot earlier than diving all the way in which in. And let’s simply say, there was some main troubleshooting. The primary move of dry ice had no drawback eradicating the gloss, nevertheless it additionally eliminated chunks of wooden that ended up trying like termites had a woody brunch with bottomless mimosas, after which bolted. We had been left with tiny holes and an uneven floor that, whereas now not shiny, gave us a model new drawback to take care of. Was dry ice even the fitting selection for this?! What occurred to NONabrasive?? We wished a clean, matte, even end. Not this.
After the fellows assured us it was a matter of gauging the correct quantity of strain and nozzle configuration, they got here again the subsequent day with a brand new method. It regarded higher, however not nice. Whereas the blasting might efficiently get into the grooves, it was all feeling uneven, and was weirdly laborious to inform the place that they had blasted and the place they hadn’t. Perhaps it was the lighting or the residue, however no matter it was, it was sort of a bummer. Plus, with an excessive amount of blasting, we’d have the identical drawback as earlier than—a too-rough floor, or worse, no floor to work with in any respect if it was worn down an excessive amount of. We wanted to complete the job with one thing gentler that will even the whole lot out.
Although they weren’t too blissful about it, we agreed that the easiest way ahead was to have them manually go over all of it once more with a pole sander. Consider a Swiffer with a sandpaper attachment as an alternative of a mud catcher. Let’s simply say I didn’t make any pals right here since that is undoubtedly tough on the physique and tremendous time-consuming to go at a ceiling this manner. However had we simply accomplished this from the soar, the method possible would’ve been a lot sooner (this all took about 3-4 days) and would’ve given us a a lot smoother end. However dry-ice simply was urged by the professionals and sounded COOL (pun meant) and we needed to see the way it labored in case it might be a very good possibility for future, comparable initiatives.
So…would I like to recommend it?
Actually, most likely not. What we realized fairly shortly is that the job ought to’ve been accomplished the old school approach from the beginning. Not even sandblasting, simply sanding. The lacquer was skinny sufficient to return off with a bit of forwards and backwards (we all know this as a result of the house owner, Julie, obtained up there between dry-ice periods and sanded it herself, reaching the look we had been going for from the beginning). I’ll say the blasting was nice at entering into the grooves, certain. However, total I believe it simply precipitated extra bother than it was value.
We’re not mad on the outcomes although (Thank goodness). And we discovered so much as we normally do round these EHD elements. Finally we had been left with a glance fairly near what we had hoped for. The brand new, uncooked wooden ended up pulling a bit of extra pink, which at first felt like a problem however truly paired actually properly with the wallpaper and paint colours we selected (that you simply’ll see tomorrow). So I’m blissful to report the ceiling is gloss-free and a lot prettier. No extra mild glare or orange tones. Mission achieved, with some to be anticipated bumps within the street (like most design dangers we take).
We are able to’t wait so that you can see the reveal as we’re fairly darn pleased with it. COME BACK TOMORROW!!!!!
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