Covering Up a Very Ugly Ceiling With Styrofoam Ceiling Tiles

After you got past the horrific glare of the very pink foam insulation covered walls (and that EVERY THING was covered in spray foam) the next worst was probably the ceiling in the main room. This particle board is more like thick cardboard then anything else and so so ugly. I found the most lovely solution: Styrofoam Ceiling Tiles. I was still concerned about their weight and if ANYTHING would be light enough to be glued to that ceiling and stay in place. I just crossed my fingers. When the giant box full of them showed up at my house and I picked it up and it literally weighed nothing I knew I had a win on my hands.

Step 1: Styrofoam Ceiling Tiles...

This stuff really is styrofoam (think white styrofoam coffee cup) it is so light and delicate it is amazing. And it comes in about a hundred different looks! My cousin helped me put up all 300 square feet of ceiling in literally an afternoon and, my goodness, this was very easy however I was really glad to have her there. Otherwise I would have had to have caulked a tile, went up the ladder, stuck it to the ceiling, got down off the ladder, moved the ladder, caulked another tile etc. etc. Having a second person cut my time by half. One of us put them up and one of us put caulk on the back of them and handed it to the person on the ladder. We took turns because even though these weigh absolutely nothing the person on the ladder still got quite the neck strain.

Step 2: Finished Ceiling and Tips...

A couple of notes that I learned along the way: These tiles are paintable so that's something I plan to do in the future, you can also order them in multiple different colors that make them look like real old tin ceiling tile – copper, gray patina, etc. Very cool. They are SO easy to install and I feel really confident that they will be there until someone wants them to come down. They aren’t what I would call “cheap” but what would have been 30+ hours taping and mudding that ceiling and then priming and painting it to one afternoon of work – well its hard to put a price on time and to me the total cost was absolutely worth it.

$465 – Ceiling tiles

$70 – Caulk

$535 – TOTAL