✋Raise the Roof✋

Installing the ceiling.

Cost

Insulation (2) - $51.92

Super strong glue (3) - $23.13

1x3 studs (4) - $8.72

Cedar Paneling (5 packs) - $97.40

Materials on hand

left over glue

box cutter

miter saw

nail gun with brad nails

jigsaw

Important people

Steven- friend and neighbor

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

One weird decision to make was about if I should put the ceiling above or below the roll over cage. I was not expected the reinforced ribbing along the top of the van when I bought it. I was told that the plastic ceiling was a drop ceiling and that if I removed it it would add an extra 4 inches of space. What both I and the person selling the van were unaware of was that there was steal bars that were hidden just behind the original plastic ceiling. You can see them in the photos from the previous posts.

Without shoes, I can just barely stand upright between the bars. Once I thought about adding the one inch thick insulation and the 5/8ths inch paneling, it was obvious that the paneling would have to be above the roll over cage. A perk of this though is that I can use the roll over cage to hang things from. Like bathing suits and dish towels.

Insulation

The ceiling needed to be insulated. That was the first step. The fiber glass roof had natural ridges in it that I used for dividing up where the insulation should go.

I needed studs to nail the paneling into. The main issue was that the 1x3 planks I was using as studs were too thinner than the insulation. If the planks were nailed flush to the studs, then they would bow from the incompressibility of the insulation, and if I wanted them to be flush with the insulation there was be a gap between the panel and the stud. The ridge fixed this problem perfectly. Since the ridge was only about a 1/2 inch thick, the insulation was an inch, and the studs about 3/4, I glued the studs onto the ridges. The tricky part with this was getting the studs to stay in place while the glue dried.

I worked on ceiling the same way I worked on the floor, only upside down, and in reversed gravity. I measured and cut pieces of insulation to fit between the studs. However I was unable to slide the large rigid boards between the roll over cage and ceiling, so I cut them in half.

After the glue dried, more problems arose. The glue I had used was not strong enough to resist gravity and after just a few days all the ceiling insulation tiles had fallen down. I went to the hardware store and bought stronger and more expensive glue.

Before I could reglue the ceiling tiles, I had to remove the glue from the old ones. That part wasn't too hard, it just took a while and a lot of fingernail strength. I reglued the tiles, and this time it worked. The pieces stayed on, and at this point, if the fell off while I was driving, they would still be more or less held in place by the cedar tongue and groove boards I was about to add.

Paneling

My neighbor helped me with the paneling. It was relatively easy actually. Cut the panels to the correct length, slide them through the bars, nail them in. The only annoying park was that the design of the miter saw was silly and the clamp to hold down a piece of wood got in the way of the saw. So for the 8 ft long boards, one person had to hold the far end of the board while the other person cut to prevent bowing.

We got the main section of the ceiling done in just a few hours.

Paneling around the fan was pretty self explanatory too. Measure the dimensions of the notch, cut out the notch (with a jigsaw), connect the tongue and groove, then nail it to the stud.

After the paneling was put in, I added the escutcheon for the fan. Since the fan was a generic piece, the finishing piece had to be shortened so that it could be level with the paneling (photo from amazon). I used a box cutter so that it would be the correct height for my thin insulation and paneling. Then screwed it on.