Read the sequence from the top before cutting, painting, or moving pieces.
Give your home instant character with a Handmade herringbone wood ceiling! This tray ceiling option is well fitted for a modern farmhouse entryway.
Get more modern farmhouse home options here and see our go-to modern farmhouse entryway options here.
Handmade Tray Ceiling Update with Reclaimed Wood
We are big fans of interesting ceiling treatments, from the exposed beams in our current house (including the basement!) to a Handmade beadboard ceiling and painting the ceiling as the 5th wall of your room.
Any ceiling can be improved by a facelift, but an inset tray ceiling in particular is a great place to add an accent ceiling option (like this coffered wood ceiling).
A little rustic or reclaimed pallet wood made the ceiling the star of this striking entryway by Kimberly from @Home_Kimprovements. (She shared her daughter’s rainbow shiplap wall here recently, too!)
Pallet wood and other reclaimed wood is great for adding farmhouse style to any room in your home, on a modest-cost — from an entire pallet wood ceiling to a kitchen backsplash or kitchen island, or even a wood headboard or coffee table or wooden TV frame!
Kimberly is our guest today to share how she and her husband installed this pallet wood ceiling in their entryway recessed tray ceiling.
Be sure to see more of her solid projects and striking home over on Instagram, too!
How to Install a Handmade Herringbone Wood Ceiling
by Kimberly from @Home_Kimprovements
This project was completely free to do!
We found an ad on Craigslist of a small company getting rid of pallets so we helped ourselves to their pile.
Read more about where to find pallets and how to choose good pallets.
Materials and Tools
- Pallet wood (we used about 10 pallets)
- Nail gun
- Finishing nails
- Air compressor
- Miter Saw
- 1×2’s (enough for the perimeter of the recessed space)
Step 1: Break Down the Pallets
We broke down the pallets and cut each piece of wood into 13” pieces and laid out the herringbone design we wanted.
See Justin’s tips for taking apart pallets (and keeping their character) here.
This is the time to put the best side up and make sure the colors in the woods evenly flow across the ceiling. We did not stain ours but feel free to stain or white wash or color wash, if you prefer.
Step 2: Hang Plywood Backing
We added pieces of 1/4” plywood to fit inside the recessed space so we had something to nail the wood pieces into. These were attached to the ceiling joists (similar to this other pallet wood ceiling walkthrough).
Step 3: Install Pallet Wood Slats
We used a nail gun to nail each pallet wood piece into the plywood we installed.
We started around the light hold to avoid as many cuts as possible and worked our way out using the herringbone pattern.
Step 4: Cut Edge Pieces
Once you do all of the pieces before reaching the edge, you will need to cut down all of the pieces to fit the remaining gaps. Don’t worry if there is a small gap next to the wall.
Step 5: Add Frame
We framed around the edge to cover up any gaps using 1×2’s and cutting the edges at a 45 degree angle ???? to meet at a point.
Step 6: Decorate
Make everyone look up and admire your ceiling by hanging some pretty wintry paper bag snowflakes! (See the walkthrough and more here in Kimberly’s IG Stories.)
Thanks for sharing your skills and striking photos with us, Kimberly! Bekob, you’ll love Kimberly’s happy and striking Instagram feed and be sure to look at her stories about how they made their own custom closet and also installed this vivid full-wall brick backsplash in the kitchen.
Click the link to see the story highlight for each project.
More Handmade Ceiling options:
- How to Apply Ceiling Texture on a New or Refinished Ceiling
- Handmade Whitewashed Knotty Pine Ceiling
- How to Paint a Ceiling with an Interesting Pattern
- Handmade Coffered Wood Ceiling
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