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Knotty pine ceiling and beams

Planeman | Posted in Construction Techniques on February 24, 2012 05:26am

I have a cabin in the So Cal mountains that has or rather had, beautiful 2×6 pine cielings supported by 4×12 beams.  Over the years previous owners have stained them very dark and painted them at least 3 times, currently a chocolate brown.  Of course the wife would like to have them back to the original knotty pine cabin look.  I have tried sanding and using an infrared paint stripper with little success.  Sanding them is way too labor intensive and too much overhead work. 

I have inquired with professional painters about grit blasting, but so far no takers.  My current plan is to cover it all with 1×6 or 8 T&G pine and spray it with a clear coat.  I am open to any suggestions or past experience anyone has had with anything similar.  Any good sources on T&G pine?

I have tried to upload pictures but keep getting error messages, I can e-mail them if anyone needs a good visual. 

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  1. Piffin | Feb 24, 2012 08:35pm | #1

    I'd say that your idea of covering it over is the best way to get from here to there.

    Prefinish the materials tho. Fareasier and better job than doing it iwhen installed over head

  2. bluegoat | Feb 24, 2012 09:50pm | #2

    How many square feet of ceiling are you talking about?  What method did you try for sanding and what method for infrared?  Are we talking belt sander held upside down?  You could make a jig out of scafold pipe and then have a mount for the pipe for the belt sander and then just guide it across the ceiling.  If you had say 1000 (100x100) square feet then that would be 400 passes of 3" strips.  Depends on the angles of the ceiling whether it would be easy enough to setup the piping.

    I know someone who did used the infrared paint remove tool using a similar system and did the entire outside of his house which is clad in 4" clap board.

  3. DanH | Feb 24, 2012 10:16pm | #3

    Relatives of my wife in Norway own a old house (built probably around 1900) with beamed ceilings where they treated the wood with lye.  Came out looking amazingly great, though I have no idea what they had to contend with in terms of paint layers, etc.

  4. JimB | Feb 25, 2012 08:25am | #4

    Even if you manage to strip the paint using a method other

    than sanding, and without gouging the wood signficantly you may not like the look of the stain.  At that point, if you want to lighten the color you will have to try bleaching or you'll have to sand enough to remove the color.  You may still end up with something that you aren't happy with. 

    In other words, you could do a signficant amount of work and still end up having to cover the existing wood to get the look you're after.  If you really want to try to work with what's already there, concentrate on a small area to find out what will work and what it takes before committing to the entire ceiling.

    I'm not sure that grit blasting is a good option, since it seems like it would be too easy to blast away a signficant amount of wood, giving you a look that would be more rustic than you want.  It does seem to me that I've seen something about dry-ice blasting being more friendly to wood substrates.

  5. Planeman | Feb 29, 2012 04:53pm | #5

    It's about 600 sq. ft. of surface.  I used a belt sander and quickly thought about building a stand to hold it up.  Still a very tedious task and couldn't get intop the corners without gong back over it with a detail sander.  With 7-4x12 beams and then grooves between the T&G boards I don't think I haver that many years left!  I think blasting it or chemicals would be better than sanding.  I will most likely cover it with pre-finished 1x6 T&G.  I appreciate the input.  Below is a picture of the main room showing the ceiling and beams.

    1. JimB | Feb 29, 2012 07:05pm | #6

      Good luck. I do think that a natural wood look will be nice.

      Let us know what you decide and post some pics of the process and the finished product.

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