I got three pieces from a freecycler a couple of years ago. They are 2ft x 5ft sections. I was going to make...(shoot..it's on the tip of my tongue......OH OH I remember it's Valances.. I was going to make Valances for my living room windows. And I planned on painting them chipped white. But then my DH finally got the trim put up around the windows...We spent a fortune doing that..and I just couldn't cover them. At least not for a few years...lol It was about two hundred a window plus since my husband had his stroke he just can't do that finish work anymore so he paid someone to install them.(to us that is a fortune) Another thing I've seen people do with them are backsplashes. BUT since you bought just one...I guess my ideas aren't helping you much... Oh well...8^) patti

Just finished up tin ceiling tiles for the same reasons as yours! I don't have pics yet, but it came out excellent. You do not have to worry about rust as everything is powercoated. They told me if we really want to, we can caulk, but it is really not necessary. We do need to caulk the corners in the crown moulding. See www.americantinceilings.com. They were very helpful. We did pattern #20 in bright white satin in a 37 sq. ft. bathroom. We've got a retro/beach thing going.

Everyone's always going on about "moisture on the walls" and "moisture on the ceiling" in bathrooms - doesn't anyone use an exhaust fan??? In our previous house I took hour-long scalding-hot baths and DH took lengthy, steamy showers (he worked out a lot and would be very sore later) and we never had moisture on the walls or the ceilings or the spendy handprinted wallpaper borders because we used our fan religiously! It was an 8x8 room and the window and mirror didn't even fog in the slightest if you turned on the fan. We invested in a very quiet fan so we could run it during a bath/shower without feeling like we were under a jet engine, but it wasn't expensive as these things go. (If you don't need a light, an 80cfm Panasonic WhisperCeiling fan can be had under $100. We had to get up on a stepstool directly underneath our fan to hear it, and we only had 7.5' ceilings there!) We also did not use the "bathroom and kitchen paint" in our main bathroom - I got talked into it for the secondary bathroom and hated the shiny finish. What was the place you were looking at for the "faux tin"? Surfacing Solution has white styrene faux tin panels for $12 each delivered, no minimum order, and by my (admittedly bad and probably wrong LOL) math you only need 8 of them. That's $96. It's more than the $12 but installation looks extremely easy and you can even prefinish them before installing. They can go right over popcorn ceilings once you vacuum off any loose chunks. I ordered samples and while they looked kind of chintzy sitting on the kitchen counter, but when I taped the piece to the ceiling even unfinished it looked surprisingly good. We're considering doing tin ceiling for the entire first floor (because it's far cheaper than having the rather trashed ceilings all replastered or sheetrocked!) and will probably use this product because we're both cheap and lazy. :-) (Thanks to Les for recommending it.)

Having installed a large tin ceiling and cornice (1600 sq ft)I would say that you could probably make a decent job of it. Tin is very thin and malleable. If there are bends, they will flatten out when it's nailed back up. Creases are another matter. They will need to be flattened with hammers and dollys. The edges will be the easiest to deal with, as they get worked anyway as you install. A wood block run along the seam should mostly flatten the beaded edge. In your case, it's probably advisable to install over plywood so you can add extra nails wherever they are needed. More worrisome is the surface condition of the old material. If the old paint doesn't come off in sheets, it will certainly begin to come off in small chips. But you can clean them up now while they are in a prone state. I hope you removed more than you need, because there is certain to be some loss during the re-install. Casey