# Ceiling Help



## HomeTeam (Jan 10, 2008)

I'm in the process of turning my room into a media room. The walls have been ripped down, the insulation has been taken out; I'm putting up new walls and all that. I decided to do a track light on the ceiling. 

For my ceiling, which is where I'm having part of my problems, mainly economic. I've had to push back working on it due to some issues, but I'm working on the room where I can. I thought about doing the drop ceiling and that's what people I know said would be best for the ceiling I have, but it's just not ecomonical and I was wondering if anyone here had any advice as to what I can do. Thanks in advance.


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## Ted White (May 4, 2009)

The dropped ceiling will not isolate sound, if that's a goal.


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

Using drywall and filling the joists with insulation will actually give you better isolation at a lower cost than a drop ceiling will.

You'll need to box around or move the ductwork but that's not a big deal to do nor a costly thing to do.

Bryan


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## Mansionmanager (May 13, 2008)

No way would I put in an ugly acoustical ceiling with grid. All you have to do is move your main AC trunk line over next to the wall. Then extend your runs from there INSIDE the floor joists. Build a soffit around your AC trunk line and also a matching soffit all the way around the perimeter of the room. This would give your ceiling the appearance of a tray ceiling. Then you can easily install recess lighting in the soffits and up above. 

The recess lighting can be dimmed when watching a movie, and doesn't hang down. If you do decide to go with track lighting, make sure it is 110v not the low voltage ones which sometimes are harder to control and often are not able to dim at all.

An example is something like this:








All of your ductwork would be inside the the top (Except the main trunk line in the side soffit)








Then put a 1x2 around the inside edge, install crown over the 1x2 leaving a "notch" to lay in rope lighting
and you would have a ceiling that looks like this:








let me know if I can be of any help


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## Ted White (May 4, 2009)

Nice pics and descriptions, MM. Thanks for those. Ceiling tiles can be really sharp looking, but won't isolate, no. Just as Bryan says.

You can certainly install lights in soffits, and that gets more complicated if you're also using the soffit as a muffler.

You would ideally not use the joist cavity as a muffler. Ideally you would attenuate the sound in the vent before allowing it to pass through the double drywalled ceiling. A sofit used as a muffler might look like this:










After travelling through 15 feet of this, the noise level is dropped a great deal, and you can then port out of the room itself. That's one way.

Sometimes you can't build a soffit and you build a Dead Vent instead.


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

Also, be careful of can lights. You're spending a lot of effort to get isolation then basically ruining it by cutting big holes for the can lights unless you build iso boxes to hold them with the only penetration being a small hole for the Romex to enter.

If the soffits are big enough, you can split them down the length into 2 sections - 1 for can lights (usually closer to the wall and use wall washer type fixtures), and the room side for ductwork isolation.

Bryan


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## HomeTeam (Jan 10, 2008)

Thank you guys for all your help. You guys have given me great ideas as to what to do now. And I really appreciate it.


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## ErikMartz (Sep 26, 2009)

That will be a sweet room when you are done. Or should I say MANCAVE!


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