Our Humble Nest: Ugly light box makeover

Well, if your house was built in the 80's, you may be the proud owner of a big ol' ugly light box. Our house was actually built in 1971, so I'm wondering if this was put in as a remodel. Gasp! Ours was a recessed beauty with old, grimy plastic insets. Of course I loved that cold, fluorescent lighting...NOT! Here's a before:

If you look closely, you might actually see some old wall paper (or ceiling paper) that looks like it jumped right out of the kitchen on The Brady Bunch.

Now, I am a huge fan of covered things up! It's way easier and often more cost effective than trying to patch or do a total redo. Our bathroom had more wallpaper (ceiling paper) and the ceiling was sagging. So, instead of taking off the paper and having to repair the ceiling, we covered it up with some awesome bead board. SO much nicer than just plain old ceiling anyways.

Oops! I digress.....So, covering things up. I knew that after removing the lights from the ceiling, there would be holes, there were, and then the ceiling wasn't textured and there was wallpaper, and it was just a mess.

So, covering up it is! I had the idea to match the faux tin tiles we used as a backsplash behind the stove, but at like $30/panel, they were too pricey.

So, I found matching real tin ceiling tiles online for a good price. The kicker was that they were raw metal. I thought about trying to reproduce the copper-like finish on the back splash tiles, but it didn't look good at all. Finally, inspiration hit that I should just paint them the same color as the rest of the ceiling. The ceiling is low anyhow, so this was best. I did a copper decorative finish around the sides, jury is still out on if I love this, added some wood trim, and put in a simple light. I would have loved a nice hanging pendant light or chandelier, but as you can see, the is not over an island or anything.

Here's a pic. in progress: