I did a room similarly at our old house, but I used MDF cut in 4x4 sheets. I used screws with finishing washers on the edges. Made for a cool look. I could have routered the edges to give it a better look. It was cool until my father-in-law and wife painted over the screws and washers while I was away! WTF...

If needed, you can use 1x1's between the floor joices and the MDF or what every you want to use. Plywood could be cool when stained...but it can be expensive to do the whole basement with plywood.

Think of it as would paneling for your ceiling!

if it was mine, I'd put in cans where I wanted, then sheet rock it but leave the beam exposed - I might surface the beam with nice trim & natural stain. In fact, that is what I've done in my own (daylight) basement.

whatever, I'd definitely cover the pipes

and, yes, white paint

also make sure if you have a bedroom located there that you have an "egress" window with a sill height no higher than 44" above the floor with approx 24" x 30" net opening, or a door that has direct exterior access.

Timely thread -

I've just finished the drywall in my basement, time to move on to the ceiling.

I've been lookign at this: ACP - Surface Mount Grid System CeilingMAX and this: CeilingLink Direct Mount Ceiling Grid System.

Mainly cause I absolutely frigging hate finishing drywall, and want to have access for various cables pulls etc. since it's a home theater and playroom. Ceiling Max you can get at Lowes/Home Despot, and insert whatever tiles you want. Gives you the acustical deadening and finished a lot faster.

That's an interesting option. How do you handle the duct work?

Timely for me as well. Today I just ordered 77 sheets of drywall for my basement. When we bought the house 5 years ago, it had a dropped ceiling with a large duct running down the middle. We moved the furnace and ran the ducting to the side in a soffit. This allowed the height of the ceiling to go full height. We added a bath, laundry and theater room. This out of a space that was really unusable for anything "normal" before we moved the duct. Check it out, if you can recapture that space and make it legit, you will add a huge chunk to your equity.

Larry

I boxed in the main duct and covered that with DW, creating an alcove where we can mount the TV, house all the gaming and theater stuff. All I've got to tile in is horizontal ceiling. We had more control over the space though as it was an addition and could spec out the ceilign height and things like making sure the branch ducts were off the top of the main and ran between the floor joists.

I think there's some reference pictures on the CeilingMax site that showed how to handle soffits and boxes for ducts with the tiles if you didn't want to drywall them. The site has good estimating tool and instructions on installation. The expensive part will be the tiles - they can get pricy.

Pic:


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1296869720.jpg