Grid Ceiling

I purchased my materials at Lowes and went with a plastic grid system vs the aluminum rails because I thought it looked a lot easier to install, and wasn't that much more expensive. I was right and it was worth it. Cutting the parts is very easy to do with standard shears. I chose Armstrong Home Style 2'x2'x1/2" Tiles. The style number was Brighton 266.

I'm not sure what I was thinking back when I framed the soffit around the duct, but I left the space for the grid ceiling at 6'-4". Oops. This would essentially leave a 1-1/4" gap on either side of three full tiles. If I installed it this way, I would have to cut twice the number of tiles and use a fourth connecter grid. That seemed like a waste of time, so I fought the urge to have everything perfectly centered and installed the grid with three full tiles starting on the back wall, leaving a single 2-1/2" gap behind the duct soffit.

After marking a level ceiling line, I installed the square angle perimeter rail using drywall screws. The main beams I ran across the space so I wouldn't have to create any joint connections along the way.

To make sure they were level I ran two strings across the length of the room located off the bottom of the perimeter rail. Then I just installed the drop wires and tied them off to length when the beam touched the string. I used the simple nail in hooks to connect the wire to. Every other cross beam lined up with a ceiling joist, so I just nailed into them for the drop wires. For the in-between locations, I put a 2x2 nailer between the joists and connected into that.

The cross bars snapped into place in the beams using a rib and detent system. The first one I didn't realize the ribs were even there... after struggling with it for a few minutes I figured it out and the rest of them snapped in easily. Once these were in place, I loaded in the ceiling tiles. Cutting the embossed tiles for the short sections was pretty irritating because you have to manually create the relief so it drops down in the grid. It was tedious, but the finished product turned out nice.

The recessed light fixtures came with tiebars that had connection hooks for drop ceiling grids. This made installation very easy. I just created the circle cutout in the tile, set it in the grid and placed the fixture over it. When I ran the lighting circuits, I put standard outlets above the locations for the lights. So I just terminated the fixture service wire to a plug so I could just plug them in after I installed them. This also makes it very easy to take them out if I ever have to.

Here's the finished product looking down the room, and from an angle. Initially, I was a little concerned with the drop ceiling looking "cheap", but I'm very pleased with how it turned out.