The ceiling in a previous home was a complete nightmare with water stains and popcorn tiles galore — not what you like to see while lying in bed. No paint short of a Sistine Chapel-esque ceiling mural could have brought it any relief. But it was a rental, and we thought nothing could be done. Thinking back now however, the romantic billows of a fabric disguise would have definitely been preferable to the water-damaged Fight Club look.
We spotted the ceiling above on a recent outing, and it reminded us of these favorite pin-tucked bedding options from Anthropologie and West Elm, which we love for their laid back glamor.
We think covering the whole ceiling, not just a section as in the first photo, would have the same kind of romantic effect as the duvets while helping to mask the undesirable surface beneath it.
What you'll need:
-enough fabric to cover the ceiling (flat bed sheets, painters drop cloth—used in the photo above— or large table clothes are less expensive alternatives to store bought fabric)
-staple gun
-ladder (or high step stool)
How to:
This is best done with the help of another person
-if you're using one piece of fabric, find the center of the fabric and staple it to the ceiling. If you're using multiple pieces of fabric, find the corners that will form the center of your ceiling and use several closely spaced staples to secure them in place
-gather a few inches of fabric towards the place that has been stapled and staple it in place so that it forms a small billowing runch
-repeat until the whole ceiling has been covered
The organic shapes of the folds is part of the look, so each tuck of fabric doesn't need to be perfectly equidistant.
If you prefer a more tent-like alternative, you can make one center staple, and then let the fabric drape out to the walls as in the picture below from Gehry and Lanya's Oakland house tour.
(Images: 1: Leah Moss, 2,3: West Elm, 4: Anthropologie, 5: Jill, Apartment Therapy SF)
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
That first photo looks like someone stapled her wedding dress to the ceiling...
...it's not a good look.
view bepsf's profile
I have to agree...the first picture is just dreadful!
view suzy8track's profile
Or, if not a wedding dress, a dropcloth left over from a painting project.
The second pic is nice, but I worry about fire risk.
view heather77's profile
I agree.. you would have to plan to give it some symmetry and flow so it didn't look like a big painters' drop cloth stapled to the ceiling.
view RegkinsOrDie's profile
The first photo is gawd-awful. Fix the ceiling.
view Tessie's profile
I think it's cool, but...
A local restaurant once had a 'grotto' room where they dipped rags in plaster and fixed them to the ceiling.
They collected dust, grease, and cobwebs.
view JoeyBrill's profile
Hideous!
reminds me of our beloved Olympic Stadium roof here in Montreal...
view montreal modern's profile
Dust Magnet. Just fix the ceiling.
view LB783's profile
i really hate it, too.
view abigailbelle's profile
yeah, fabric anywhere that it can't be readily removed and washed is gross. I would suggest taking artist frames, stretching fabric across them, and suspending them ala oversized ceiling tiles.
view Modfan's profile
These solutions call attention to the problems rather than disguise them.
view grrliz's profile
i had something like this once in my old studio. looked very nice BUT um dust..yeah...not cool.
view bellaknollie's profile
The second photo is romantic, even if it is silly to hide a roof problem with flamable fabric rather than fixing it....it's ONLY going to get worse. The first photo looks like my attempt at having a canopy bed in high school....except they stapled the entire drop cloth rather than just the ends.
view thermal's profile
KILZ is your friend, damaged-ceiling people!
view Jezebella's profile
Kind of reminds me of the crazy scheme my friend and I made up when she was living with my family for a while. There was no light in the extra room except an electric plug in the ceiling. I can only guess it was meant for a lamp of some kind.
Anyway, we took an extra long string of christmas lights (safe to the touch cold ones) and stapled them up all over the ceiling in a random pattern. Then we took a lot of dark blue fabric and stapled it in soft billows over that.
It looked very pretty with the lights off, but we were amazed when we flicked on the light switch. Decorating in the house with christmas lights tends to be very brash and cheesy - but hidden behind the dark fabric they just gave the room a soft glow. The bunching of the fabric meant some lights were a few inches from it, and some were nearly a foot - so instead of every light looking the same, they faded in and out brighter and darker.
It looked like a lovely dark image of the night sky.
It's only something that would work in a younger person's place, of course. But it was very pretty while we had it up.
And before the safety nuffers get to me, I used safe lights, put protective plastic between the staples and the electric wiring, used redundant staples to make sure no lights fell down over time, made sure no fabric was ever too close to the lights themselves, and my fire chief father thought it was okay. :P
Dust wasn't an issue, but that's because it wasn't a long term solution anyway. I wouldn't staple one if you intended it to last more than a year.
view Kaete's profile
I call B.S. on the "no amount of paint would help." If you have water stains, you use a primer like Killz, you stop the water stain, then you paint it. Then you just have tiles or popcorn, but you do not have a Fight Club ceiling. No able-bodied person who can afford $50 for paint and a roller has to complain about a Fight Club ceiling.
view tam-tbag's profile
Seems like it'd be bad fung shui, or just bad energy in general, to have this massive, dusty heap hovering above you! Scary!
view pinknest's profile
Hahahahha.. It is good to have a sense of humor. The comments made me laugh out loud. Thanks!
view sunrise's profile
This pic was taken upstairs at Lucketts, right?
view Annie19's profile
I think it has a ton of potential, and love it. I think it would look much better if it spanned the WHOLE ceiling though
view gridpaper's profile
I can see a treatment in this vein for a party or some other short-term decorative use, but not for ongoing decor. I just had a flashback to the ceilngs (painted, smooth, glossy white paint) in my mother's home. She was a heavy smoker and the white ceilings after a few years were a truly disgusting caramel brown. Now think of fabric... Ick.
view SherryBinNH's profile
I just did something like this along an accent wall in my apartment. I used left-over tulle from a wedding, dyed it a light green/yellow and used some spray starch to create a wrinkled effect that would stay, but could be easily removed. I think the key might be to use a lighter fabric that still feels airy overhead. Still, the first pic took a lot of effort, hanging ANYTHING from a ceiling is tricky.
view kdave04's profile