What To Do With a Ceiling After Removing Skylights?

You purchased a house and decided to remove the  skylights. Now you’re left with open holes in your ceiling and aren’t sure what to do about them. At Guardian Angel Inspections, we strive to assist homeowners with a variety of issues. So we put together this guide to help you address your ceiling after removing its skylights.

You may have removed them for a variety of reasons. For instance, the skylights may have been leaking or causing an unacceptable draft to infiltrate your home. If removed correctly, the skylights and their housing should have come out.

Now that there’s a gaping hole in your ceiling, what can you do to fix it? Read on to learn the best techniques.

Find Another Use for the Ceiling

When you remove skylights from the ceiling, it causes the trusses or rafters to become exposed. While this looks unsightly, it also presents the perfect opportunity to put those rafters to good use.

For example, you can use the trusses to install new sheathing to rebuild the ceiling. Depending on which room the skylights were in, you can use the exposed rafters as support for something like a pot rack if the skylights were in the kitchen.

Install a Vapor Barrier

You could also put up a vapor barrier. This will assist you in combating further air leaking in. From there, you can patch the ceiling using drywall. Then, paint over the fresh drywall so that it matches the rest of the ceiling.

Install Lighting

Of course, you don’t have to necessarily cover up the entire hole. Since you have a perfectly good hole in your ceiling, you can use it to your advantage and install lighting to add mood and character to your room. This is especially handy if you’ve wanted to put up new lighting anyway.

One of the most popular lighting options for ceilings is cove lighting. These are recessed lights that you can adjust to suit your needs. Certain styles let you control the brightness, while others present one continuous level of lighting.

Skylights serve to bring natural outdoor lighting into your home. But if you simply patch up the hole, you will likely find that the room is now much darker. You’ve already got a hole in your ceiling, so you may as well put it to use.

If you have dark walls in the room where the skylight used to be, you should definitely think about installing a new source of lighting. 

Install Stained Glass

If you would like there to be a way to customize your home without the use of a skylight, consider installing stained glass paneling. You can find one that accommodates the hole in your ceiling, thereby avoiding excessive measuring and cutting.

With stained glass paneling in your ceiling and backlighting behind it, you are certain to add considerable charm and character to your home that isn’t often seen in today’s houses. This can help increase the value of your home if you decide to sell it one day. It will certainly make your house unique, which is often a selling point for potential buyers.

Perhaps the best part about using a stained glass panel with proper backlighting is that it will look completely natural — not like something that was done as an afterthought to try and hide a big, gaping hole.

Install a Mirror

If you aren’t worried about lighting, a mirror is a great way to cover a skylight hole. You can still get more lighting, however, as the mirror will reflect your interior light sources, thus creating an open aesthetic throughout the room.

What’s more, mirrors help open up rooms and make them appear bigger than what they really are. So if the room is already cramped for space, this is a great touch that goes a long way.

Call Guardian Angel Inspections in South Florida

Are you concerned about your roof after removing a skylight? Call Guardian Angel Inspections for a comprehensive roof inspection. Our home inspectors are happy to examine your roof and ceiling to help you determine the best course of action for addressing them. 

Whether you need a roof inspection or a complete home inspection , you can count on Guardian Angel Inspections to meet your needs.

We can inspect your property to make sure that everything is in proper working order. So contact us today to discuss your roof inspection and home inspection needs. You can reach us at (561) 512-7854 .

The information in this blog post is for reference only and not legal advice. As such, you should not decide whether to contact a lawyer based on the information in this blog post. Moreover, there is no lawyer-client relationship resulting from this blog post, nor should any such relationship be implied. If you need legal counsel, please consult a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.