Kitchen Ceiling, an Experiment in PVC

6 November

Kitchen ceiling before
it was a kitchen (before it was ours)

Stan and I wandered into Madetro Closets y Cocinas (Closets and Kitchens) and by the time we'd walked out, we'd contracted for kitchen cabinets, a kitchen ceiling and a closet for the master bedroom. Fernando said that we had two weeks before delivery. A week later, right in the midst of our paint scraping, mold killing and light installing, Rámon showed up to install the framework for the ceiling. Yikes!

Same basic view with the passthrough
punched out, ceiling framed and lights hung

Thank goodness Rámon was working two jobs. After he installed the framing, he had to wait for the actual ceiling material to arrive, so he went off to his other jobsite, giving Stan and me time to hustle up with scraping loose paint, killing mold, and installing the ceiling fan and recessed lights.

Stan wiring lights

Saturday afternoon, Rámon and his lovely wife, Veronica, showed up with the rest of the "boards" for the ceiling. They labored two straight days, with the help of their 2 1/2-year-old son, Ramon, and by Sunday night had completed the installation.

Ramon framing

Not your typical laid-back Mexican laborors, Rámon and Veronica recently returned from six years in the Carolinas and around the American SE, working in the construction industry. Here in Mexico, they are flooded with work because of their expertise with sheetrock installation. In this brick and concrete world that is Mexican construction, the demand for workers with American know-how is high because big-time foreign investors want to develop American look-alikes.

Rámon, Veronica, and Ramon

Compared to the peeling uneven concrete that was the original 9-foot ceiling, I think the new PVC is going to work really well with my concept of stainless steel and porcelain, squeaky-clean food storage and preparation areas.

Finished kitchen ceiling, 6 November

While we wait for Madetro to deliver the closet and cabinets, we're still scraping away at loose paint and washing down walls with bleach and detergent, the theory being that the cleaner we can make the surface behind, the less likely we'll have problems with mold, later on.