Has anyone ever painted a suspended ceiling black for your HT?

Curt Luther · 01-13-2004, 07:32 PM

I am going to be using a suspended ceiling for my soon to be completed HT. I want to go with black but found out today that to order the grids black, it will cost an arm and leg because you can only buy it by the case and not the each. They also said that the panels are not available in black unless I am buying thousands of them!! ( Home Depot ). Has anyone had any experience with this?
Thank you for your feed back.

Curt

John Avanti · 01-13-2004, 08:35 PM

I am a painting contractor, yes you can paint the metal grids. Hire a painting contractor to spray a primer first, using a commercial sprayer. Then have him spray black flat paint 2 coats over that. good luck john avanti

Jared Neumann · 01-13-2004, 11:04 PM

Curt Home Depot and Lowes told me the same thing. Its totally not true. I have a armstrong drop ceiling with the grids and they cost the same as the white ones at Home Depot. Here is what I did. Go to the Armstrong web site and get there customer service number, ask them for a distributer in your area and call them directly. If you have any problems feel free to email me for some more info.

By all means you do not have to go through the trouble of painting grids and tiles.

If you want take a look at my ceiling tiles, the are Armstrong factory black

MY THEATER

Jared

Glenise · 01-14-2004, 02:35 AM

Yes, my ceiling was painted black.

John Perry · 01-14-2004, 07:01 AM

When you call the distributor, I think that 1728ABL is the 2'x2' armstrong tile and 1728BL is the 2'x4'. I have no experience with black traditional suspended grids - I used black Ceiling Max for my theater. I wanted to save the couple of inches in ceiling height.

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Curt Luther · 01-14-2004, 09:47 PM

Thank you very much Jared for your reply. I do not want to paint. I wiil take your advice and look into that.

John what is Black ceiling max??? Never heard of it.

Thanks
Curt

John Perry · 01-15-2004, 08:56 AM

Check out ceilingmax.com, it's pricey but works well, and come in satin black.

Clay M · 01-15-2004, 12:52 PM

Mine will be painted black (probably). The price difference
was about $350 with painting vs black armstrong tiles.
I would spring for the black tiles, but when the ceiling runs $1000 over budget already, you tend to look for ways to pinch pennies.

John Perry · 01-15-2004, 01:29 PM

I paid about $40 or so per box of 16 2x2's (64 sq. ft.)which I think was cheaper than most of the Home Depot white tiles. Not to mention paint cost and the time to paint them. Also IMO none of the "paint it yourself" black tiles look as good as the factory ones.

Lee L · 01-15-2004, 02:02 PM

Look in the yellow pages under acoustical ceiling contractors and call around. Just about any ceiling contractor who has been in business for a while has a storage building full of leftovers from jobs. You can probably get some real cheap.