Tundra on the Ceiling!

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Materials: Tundra Laminate Flooring, 2.5 inch Finishing Nail Gun (rent), Ladders, Extra Helpers, Table Saw, Color Match Filler Paste for minor flaws, Tolerance for Minor Flaws

Description: The original plan was to use a finishing nail gun to use T&G bamboo flooring as a unique green ceiling. Tundra flooring was nearly half the price so thus a hack was born.

1. This is absolutely a multi-person job, manipulating and nailing large panels above your head.

2. Find and mark the joists! You do not want to be anchoring anything to just the drywall! Tundra panels are wide enough so that if you are installing perpendicular to the joists each panel will hit at least two joists. Put two nails in each of them.

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3. Because you are nailing it down this is not going to be a ‘floating’ installation. It will flex to the underlying ceiling. Thus it will be essentially impossible to get that nice ‘click’ that snugs the panels tightly together. Frustration with this gave rise to:

—The hack within the hack: Converting Tundra to No-click Tongue and Groove panels–

The panels were trimmed on the long edge so that the little bump on the tab was removed but a little of the tab remained. On the short edge the bump was removed with a utility knife.

4. Even with the click removed a perfect fit was not possible so wood putty was needed to fill the resulting cracks. Fortunately since this is not going to be walked on and not viewed up close this does not represent a major problem unless you are bothered by things being not perfect.

~ Daniel Nolte