10 Shiplap Ceiling Home Improvement Ideas

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A shiplap ceiling is one of the best ways to add architectural interest and visual appeal to a room. Whether you are looking to hide an ugly ceiling or want to add a modern sophisticated design to a new construction home, a shiplap ceiling offers stunning design results.

One of the biggest changes you can make to a room is to add shiplap to a ceiling or wall. Personally, I am a huge fan of shiplap ceilings and I love how the textured wood creates a focal point in any space.

Shiplap Ceiling with Beams

Shiplap on a ceiling in a living room especially at a beach or lake house, is the perfect way to infuse a coastal design that is rich in character and lends visual appeal.

A ceiling with warm brown beams offers a nice contrast to the white ceiling planks. Our lake house living room and kitchen above features tongue and groove real wood cedar planks that we painted white last year.

Click through this post, lake house living room remodel painted Chantilly Lace to see the full makeover of this room. Are you a fan of the white ceiling and brown beams?

We also added a lightweight shiplap ceiling below in our pool house with grey beams. Our pool house is about 90% complete and we still need to finish decorating but you get the idea of how the beams add architectural interest and character to the vaulted ceiling.

The cool gray toned stain color on the beams helps break up the white ceiling and gives a coastal theme to the room. I love how the light blue walls and white board and batten coordinate with the white ceiling and beams. The install process on these lightweight faux ceiling was simple and quick to install. You can see more of our pool house renovation here.

Shiplap Ceiling Cost

A shiplap ceiling cost will depend on what type of material you use. A range would be $2.00 – $8.00 a square foot give or take plus the cost to install. The faux shiplap above is the same material we installed on on our basement ceiling (below) and the cost for that material was $5.00 square foot. The cheapest shiplap look would be roughly around $2 a square foot would be pre cutting strips of plywood or MDF and using a quarter to create your grooves during install. The plywood and quarter method is a money saving option and will give you that shiplap wood look with grooves.

Above you can see how we installed the ceiling on the tracks with the clips and cut out the recessed light holes during installation.

The image above is a little blown out so it is difficult to see the grooves in the ceiling but you can ee how the white texture of the ceiling makes this space “not” look like a basement.

For the basement remodel above, we installed Armstrong Country Classic Plank to create a shiplap look and the install was so easy! We used their track system and the planks were a tongue and groove that fit nicely on the tracks. Installing a shiplap ceiling especially in a basement is a better alternative to a drop ceiling or popcorn ceiling. The ceiling planks are lightweight, textured like wood and offer easy installation.

Shiplap Ceiling Ideas

You can add shiplap to any ceiling in a bathroom, kitchen, livingroom, entryway, bedroom or basement. You name the room, this type of ceiling will look great! Especially if you are going after a farmhouse house or coastal style.

The split level kitchen above features a gorgeous white shiplap ceiling (same ceiling that we installed in our pool house) that we installed after we vaulted the ceiling in the living room and kitchen.

Click through this post, how to install a shiplap ceiling with Armstrong to see the before, after and installation process. We turned a 1970’s split level home into a modern farmhouse style and the ceiling added the farmhouse design we were going after. You can see the full house renovation by clicking through to this page, split level home renovation.

I found several ceiling tiles on Amazon to enhance a ceiling if installing shiplap is not your thing. This ceiling tile is a really cool that you can glue it in place and the pattern looks great!

Shiplap ceilings are easy to install and offer a custom look in any room. If you search Google or Pinterest (follow us here) you will find several shiplap ceilings in bold colors as well. White is not the only color! We personally have never installed a black or bold colored ceiling with shiplap but I would love to one day!