Painting an Unfinished Basement Ceiling

November 12, 2019November 18, 2019
Mike
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When I started designing my finished basement, I was concerned about the ceiling. The 60+ year old floor joists were exposed and there was a million nails protruding from the flooring above. There was also electrical boxes, exposed plumbing and duct work, so I did not think covering the ceiling with drywall was the answer. The next potential solution was a drop ceiling. I did not want to install a drop ceiling. Drop ceilings are expensive, I don’t like the look, and I didn’t want to lower the ceiling height and make the space feel small. My last option was to look into painting an unfinished basement ceiling.

After several days of research, I found blogs where people were painting an unfinished basement ceiling white, but the white shows all the defects in the joints and ceiling. Then, I found people painting an unfinished basement ceiling black to hide the defects, but I didn’t want the basement to be dark and feel like a basement. I found this great blog, Unskinny Boppy, where the ceiling was painted a blue/grey color. I sent the blog to a coworker who painted his ceiling a blue/grey and he loved it, so my wife and I were off to find the right color.

Paint Type and Color

I knew I was going to spray the ceiling myself, and that it was going to be hard work, so I wanted a paint that would cover the 60 year old joists in 1 coat. My research led me to Behr Marquee, which has paint+primer in 1. I used Benjamin Moore paint throughout the rest of my house, but I was concerned it would be too thick to work well with a home owner spray gun. Benjamin Moore is the best paint you can buy because its thick and covers your walls with one coat if rolled on correctly, and is also the most durable paint. Since this is a ceiling, it won’t be drawn on or damaged by my kids so I didn’t feel durability was a primary concern. After 2 grueling hours in Home Depot, my wife settled on the color “Charcoal Blue.”

Tools and Materials

I purchased a roll of painters plastic and painters tape and I had previously purchased a Wagner Flexio spray gun that I used to paint some older furniture in my house. You will also need work lights, a mask, safety goggles, and either really old clothes or a tyvek suit.

Painting the Unfinished Basement Ceiling Process

Using these types of spray guns, there is a lot of over spray, so I tarped off all the walls and the staircase leading out of my basement. Unless you want to paint the ceiling lights, remove them and set up work lights so you can see when you are painting.

Covered walls in plastic in preparation for painting the ceiling — Typical view of room taped off

I purchased 6 single gallons of paint, which covered the 525 SF ceiling, with a little left over for touch-ups. This equates to a gallon of paint covering approximately 90-100 SF of unfinished ceiling.

WEEKEND WARRIOR TIP: Buy single gallon cans of paint rather than the 5 gallon bucket. The single gallon paint cans will be easier to pour into the spray canister, which you will do numerous times.

I put on the Tyvek suit, mask, and goggles and started to spray. Luckily, my mom came to help me out. She was in charge of moving lights and filling up the paint gun canister. It would have been possible to do this job solo, but having a partner made things easier. The process still took close to 4 hours in total. Here are some photos:

After removing the plastic and painting the walls, we had a great looking ceiling that hides most imperfections and eliminates the drab basement feeling.