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I have an old building that has the old ceiling tins in it. Upon first buying the building, several people came by to see if they could purchase them. It is a 45 X 70 building. The entire ceiling has tiles...along with the side pieces on the edges. I went ahead and refinished the tiles and they are silver now. They are beautiful. Are they worth anything now?
wow- you did all the hard work -good for you! I don't know if you're familiar with it but DH and I drove up and down the RT 127 "Yardsale" that is held every year looking for ceiling tiles! I wanted some for a small room(den)in my home. I never gathered enough of the same style so I am always on the lookout. The ones I did get DH made a panel for my dishwasher front that looks really cool and framed a few others. I just know how hard my husband worked getting the paint off the tiles we did find so I can only imagine doing a huge ceiling full! May I ask what you used to remove the paint? Sorry for the ramble- but this is right up my alley!
wow- you did all the hard work -good for you! I don't know if you're familiar with it but DH and I drove up and down the RT 127 "Yardsale" that is held every year looking for ceiling tiles! I wanted some for a small room(den)in my home. I never gathered enough of the same style so I am always on the lookout. The ones I did get DH made a panel for my dishwasher front that looks really cool and framed a few others. I just know how hard my husband worked getting the paint off the tiles we did find so I can only imagine doing a huge ceiling full! May I ask what you used to remove the paint? Sorry for the ramble- but this is right up my alley!
I didn't have to remove the paint on the these tiles. The antique paint that was on them was orginal baked on paint and was in perfect condition as far as flaking and such was concerned. They were a little discolored, but that was it. I cleaned all the tiles. The ceiling is 14 feet tall and I left them all in tact for fear of messing them up if I had taken them down and sprayed metal paint on them. I was just curious about how much they worth...a few people told me I could have probably paid for my building if I had just sold them as they were. I also have another building in which I refinished the tiles with copper paint mixed with metallic. These tiles were a job...as I did have to strip the paint on them. I used regular paint stripper and a power washer (wouldn't advise doing this for just anyone---had to be extremely carful not get it on me as I powerwashed, and it was really difficult to put paint stripper on over my head. They are beautiful also, but I get many more compliments on the silver tiles. I wouldn't have tackled the ones I painted copper had I known how hard it was going to be to refinish them. It took me almost a month to strip them in that that building...it is 25 X 60. I was exhausted.
Did you ever find out what your ceiling was worth? I am in a situation like yours and I am just starting to market an old church in Indiana with ceiling tiles that are in excellent condition. The church is looking to sell the tiles to raise money for a new church. Any help would be appreciated.
Asking price and selling price will be very different.
Price will depend in part on how you sell them. You can sometimes get more selling them individually, but after you sell a handful, there will be fewer and fewer buyers, what will you do with the rest? Do you have three years to list them continually on Ebay and sell them one at a time?
Selling them as a set is a faster way to sell them all but will bring less money per panel. They still make many of the old patterns using old molds or new molds copied from old ones. Thus, you will get more for a pattern that is not available new. The problem with old ceiling tiles is that few rooms will be configured exactly alike. Thus, you have to buy either way too many panels or put wood between or around them to make them fit. Further the crown molding is not likely to fit a different room. Thus, in most cases, unless the new room is much much smaller, or the buyer can find some new molding that works with your tin ceiling, it will not look right in another room.
I have bought old tin ceiling panels twice. The first time I learned how impractical it is to reuse them for a ceiling in a different room for the reasons set out above. I ended up re-selling the panels to an artist who wanted to make paintings on them. The second time I bought a set of really neat unique panels for $300. There are 28 of them and not quite enough to do all of the room where I want to use them. I will put 4" or 6" wood molding around each panel and around the edges of the room so I will have enough panels. I have to remove the old paint from them and repaint because some are rusty and other the paint has filled in a lot of the detail. It takes about an hour to prepare each panel for primer, so I am looking at 30 hours of work before I can prime, and paint them. I will need about $200 of primer and paint. Then I have to lay them out, design and build the wood moldings and instal the whole thing. When I am done, I will probably have 300 hours of work into it and $600 to $1000 for materials (depending on the types of wood I use), plus the $300 purchase price. Not worth it except as a DIY project, it would cost $15,000 at $50 an hour. By comparison I bought new tin ceiling panels for about $1200 including the crown moldings. I painted them and then had them installed for $600 (including plywood underneath). No one can tell they are not original. This particular style of tin ceiling has been in use since at least 1893.
If you take them down carefully and if the old paint is in good shape, or it has been removed, they might can be fairly valuable. It depends on how many you have, what style they are, whether you have the crown molding that goes with them, and their condition. I have seen people asking $3,000 to $4,000 for a set, but that is insane. If they get that, it is because they found an uninformed buyer. The sole exception is if you have a really large set of particularly unique and ool pattern in excellent condition.
stripping off the old paint and/or rust can be time consuming. Repainting them generally does not add value. Some people will want them in original condition or with old paint onthem, some will want to paint them their own choice of color.
Thanks for all the help, I am looking at selling all to an artist in California, or selling the salvage rights for the whole building, whichever brings the best price. These tiles are from the late 1800's, and in excellent shape. Any other leads would be appreciated. Here are a few pictures.
We are currently salvage the tin ceiling out of a building. I'm wondering if you got yours sold, and at what price, because we have the same pattern as your first photo, what I would call the border. Thanks for any help!
No, I haven't found a buyer yet, but we haven't taken them down yet either, I still can't say what they are worth. What I have found is that if they are not off the ceiling yet then they are not interested. Should be taking them down this summer so hopefully we can get something out of them then. We are going to use some of them in our new church foyer so we don't know exactly how many we will have left, that doesn't help either. I will post on here once we sell any and would appreciate your input if you sell yours. Thanks Tim.
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Tin Ceiling Value
