Your shopping cart is currently empty.

Suspended Ceilings: Tiles and Panels for Drop Installations

As Seen On

As Seen On Logos

Suspended Ceilings - More Than Meets the Eye

It is not entirely clear who invented the modern drop ceiling, or even exactly when, but there is no doubt about why suspended ceilings have been such an enduring success. In fact, this revolutionary technique for ceiling creation continues to grow in popularity as innovative manufacturers develop new dropped ceiling panels, adding flexibility and value in ways that those first suspended ceiling pioneers could never have imagined.

The concept was simplicity itself. Using wires, brackets, and removable panels, a finished "suspended ceiling" could be hung, dropped, or suspended below the structural ceiling, concealing all the necessary mess but providing ready access to it when needed. Suspended ceilings were inexpensive and easy to install, allowing owners to quickly modernize the look and feel of their buildings. If suspended ceilings had never provided more than this primary benefit, they would still have been a significant improvement and a lasting success. But that was just the beginning.

By the middle of the twentieth century, the now familiar "office style" suspended ceiling, made up of 2ft. x 4ft. white mineral fiber drop-in ceiling panels and 4ft. fluorescent lighting fixtures, was everywhere; a clear reflection of both the efficiency and the conformity of that era. At this point in suspended ceiling history, function was still very much in the driver's seat.

For decades the office style suspended ceiling was a virtual design captive of its own success. Because of their low cost, versatility, and ease of installation, the esthetic possibilities of drop ceilings were almost completely ignored. The idea that someone might install a suspended ceiling because of how it looked, rather than in spite of it, was unheard of.

Today that has all changed. Modern dropped ceilings have created a flexible, changeable "fifth wall", giving designers, architects, and DIYers a whole new interior landscape with which to unify, expand and enhance the decorative themes of any space. Suspended ceilings have finally come into their own!