How to Transform Your Home With a DIY Wood Plank Ceiling

If you’re looking to add warmth, texture, and character to your space, a DIY wood plank ceiling is a project that can completely transform a room. While it might seem intimidating at first, this step-by-step guide breaks everything down for you, including materials you’ll need and steps all the way from prep to finishing touches.

With a bit of planning and the right approach, you can achieve this beautiful, custom DIY wood plank ceiling without the professional price tag.

DIY Wood Plank Ceiling

Materials & Tools Used:

Step 1: Select Material

First, you need to select what material you want to use. We debated whether to use tongue and groove planks, or shiplap. We preferred the natural wood aesthetics that tongue and groove offered, rather than the engineered look of most shiplap products.

Once we narrowed down to tongue and groove, the next step was to choose the wood species. There’s so many options out there including cedar, pine, and douglas fir. There are pretty minor differences between each, so our decision came down to what was locally available at a good price – which ended up being douglas fir!

Another decision you need to make when selecting your material is the size of planks. I found it helpful to use ChatGPT to generate mock-up images. They won’t be totally accurate, but can give you an overall sense of what it will look like.

We opted for a wider plank (1×6″). We liked the look of the wider plank, but also chose it for ease of install. If we did 1×3″ instead, it would’ve been double the number of planks to install!

Step 2: Prep Planks

Once you’ve selected and secured your material, it’s time to start prepping the planks. Since we selected a mid-grade tongue and groove planking, there were some minor imperfections (grooves and small knot holes). We used wood filler to fix these.

There were some planks that had large knot holes, and it didn’t make sense to fill those. Instead, we tried to strategically cut out the unusable sections when installing, while still minimizing waste.

After the wood filler has dried, lightly sand until it’s even. We used a hand sanding block. Repeat again with another round of wood filler and sanding if necessary.

The next phase of prep involves priming and painting. Because our room has vaulted ceilings and they’re hard to reach, we decided to prime (1 coat) & paint (2 coats) before installing them on the ceiling. But, you don’t have to.

TIP: If you’re using a material with high tannin content, make sure to use a stain blocking primer. We learned this the hard way – we used a regular primer, and the planks showed discolouration within a few days. So, we ended up having to do a second round of priming (this time with a stain blocking primer), and re-paint.

Step 3: Prep Ceiling

Next up is ceiling prep! One option is to glue/nail the planks directly into the ceiling. If that’s what you’re doing, no prep is needed and you can skip to installation.

But, we opted to install furring strips to ensure a strong hold. Our popcorn ceiling was quite raised, so adding furring strips was important to secure the planks.

In terms of spacing, furring strips were installed every 12 inches. They were glued with construction adhesive, and also screwed into every ceiling joist with a 2.5 inch structural screw.

Step 4: Install planks

After the ceiling is prepped, it’s time to install the planks!

Again, it was important to us that these planks were secure, so we installed the planks using construction adhesive on every furring strip, and then nailed in the plank with a 2.5 inch 16 gague nail.

We used a miter saw to cut the planks to size and staggered the joints randomly to prevent them from lining up in consecutive rows.

If you have a ceiling without any lights or other fixtures, you can just continue installation all the way across the ceiling.

But, we had 3 obstacles in our way – a ceiling fan, a light, and a fireplace chimney. Custom cuts had to be done to work around these areas and each fixture had their own trim to cover the cut lines.

Step 5: Finishing touches

Finally, you can wrap up this project with your finishing touches!

We opted to install quarter round along the edge of the wood planks. We did that for 2 reasons:

1. Our house is from the 1980s, so our walls are not perfectly straight. As a result, the gap between the wall and the planks was not completely uniform along the edges.
2. Wood planks can expand, so we left small gaps intentionally to allow for this. Quarter round over top helps maintain the seamless look.

Lastly, we decided to upgrade our ceiling fan to pull the whole renovation together. Becuase we have a vaulted ceiling, we needed a fan that could be installed on a slope, so we chose this one: Hunter Exeter 54 in LED Ceiling Fan

Here’s a similar version if you don’t have a vaulted ceiling: Dimmable Ceiling Fan

Final thoughts

That’s a wrap – your DIY wood plank ceiling is complete! While this project does take time and effort, the end result is so worth it. I truly can’t believe how much more elevated and custom our space feels.

This post was all about DIY wood plank ceiling.

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