Create A "Copper" Tile Ceiling

In the late 1800's it was standard to dress up your ceilings. They were treated as the "5th wall" with paster medallions (or "ceiling roses"), hand painted pictures, boarders and coffers. Then we discovered major developments and put aside architecture, quality, uniqueness and patience in an effort to get into our 3-month-pop-up HOA house faster.

Our ceilings died a rapid, "flat white" drywall death.

The Babe Cave, brought ceiling-sexy back.

Eyes up gentlemen.

Eyes up.

Built in 1912, the Babe Cave was at the end of that glorious era but still constructed in a time of legacy builds and true estates. Reasonably, some sort of accoutrement decked her 5th walls.

Google "ceiling tile" and your first options are single tiles made of either metal, styrofoam or plastic. Sure they look like coffered tin tiles - but they are most definitely not. Their sheer shininess is a dead giveaway.

God Bless you, Craigslist.

There I found the new owner of a 1920's bakery who was in the process of gutting the building. He had no use for the massive 100+ stack of chipped, rusty, rough-edged tin tiles that he had pulled down.

$500 later (and that's an award-winning bargain) I had rid him of his rubble and drove the 2.5 hours home feeling like I had just robbed someone.

The Babe Cave's Master Bath color pallet included copper, white and black. I wanted a copper ceiling. That required thousands of dollars. What I had, was a mountain of jagged tin.

When in doubt - pray.

And then, search Amazon.

A few minutes later, a gallon of Modern Masters Reactive Metal Paint was destine for Wilmington, NC. This paint is incredible, order yours HERE.

At $128.00 per gallon I mildly hyperventilated just like you did after reading that. But rest easy fellow renovation soldiers. It's Worth.Every.Penny.

The reactive paint has real copper particles in it allowing you to naturally and legitimately patina whatever you paint. Patina is the blueish, greenish sometimes brown(ish) film that that begins to form on copper as it oxidizes.

You've seen this on copper gutters and old roofs. It's a gorgeous shade that unfortunately, takes time and nature to accomplish.

I, have neither.

But I do have Modern Masters.

The video above takes you through the step-by-step process but print this out and tape it to your work table for easier instruction:

1. Ready the Troops: Lay out all the tiles you will need to cover your ceiling plus a few extras incase you screw up. Wearing a mask (to protect you from any lead paint or chemical exposure) wipe down and lightly sand each tile. Break off any loose paint chips.

If you are using modern metal tiles (say, from Lowe's) you can skip this step. Same if you bought the plastic or styrofoam versions (just lie to me and say you didn't use those).