tanheather34

OK, I am expanding my salon and will be remodeling to make room for my new beds. I need some suggestions for decor. Currently, I have a glass block reception counter (which I will keep) black leather couches and neutral decor. I am thinking about taking out the drop ceiling, painting it a dark color, and doing away with the flourescent lights (which are not used in the tanning rooms. They have lamps and more soothing relaxing light). The average age of my customer is 18-50 - pretty broad. Any ideas or advice would be appreciated.

Tanzenite

Stay away from the "beach" theme.
Get rid of the flourecent lighting.

tanheather34

Don't have the beach theme and definitely don't plan to use it and and the fluorescent lights will be history.

Island girl

How will you get rid of the lights? What are you going to use instead?

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eyecandytanning

How are you going to paint the drop cieling? i have been thinking about painting my cieling also.

Woodlands

"I am thinking about taking out the drop ceiling"

I know my hair salon has a room where they do the hair washing/massages/paraffins that actually has a black drop ceiling though so it might be easier/cheaper to replace the tiles with the existing tracks than build a new ceiling (not knowing how it's set up of course - really going by my basement set up ;) )

unity

If you do paint, trust me, remove the tiles. It could be dusty or messy though. Paint them, dry them and then put them up on the tracks. You could even consider painting the back-side to preserve the textured side.

If you paint them in place, you will regret it! Prior owner here did it, what a mess. Anything you have to open the ceiling to run sounds cables or do anything the paint cracks all around the tile.

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SteveO

Take out the ceiling tiles and leave them out. Leave the gridwork in for decoration and hanging lights. Taking out the tiles will allow the heat to rise and significantly lower your cooling costs.

Esglow

When building out my salon last summer I took out all of the millions of ceiling tiles and fluorescent lighting and what I used to paint the ceiling was Dryfall Paint from Sherwin Williams called Bolt Brown it is an industrial paint used for steel buildings etc... one it hits the air it turns into dust and can be swept up (If its not 100 plus degrees out then it is messy and doesn't dry when it hits the air) and rented an industrial sprayer and went to work it took 6 hours to spray our entire ceiling 2500 sq.ft. Building and it’s the one thing I love the most! Also for lighting I used ceiling fans above each of my 8 rooms because they are completely open and a sconce light fixture in the rooms.

P.S. I didn't have any equipment in my salon when I did the ceiling painting so I would be extremely cautious!

Good Luck

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Erica/Love My Tan

bronzecafe

Used the same Dryfall paint in our first salon to spray the open ceiling. First it's very expensive, second it dosn't "Dry" when it "Falls". Made a huge mess, everything was black. When I did the second salon, I used el-cheapo Glidden ceiling paint from Home Depot. Easier clean-up, CHEAPER, and covered better. Open ceiling is the way to go, just paint it black, because you will have to touch it up now and then and you want to be able to match the color easy. $2 cans of flat black spray paint from wal-mart do the trick.