Cheap, Durable and Easy to Install . . . What More Could a Girl Ask For?

In this photo, this week’s architectural element has been repurposed as it is functioning as skirting for a veranda. To see this element used for its intended purpose you would have to travel to what was known as the Balfour building on James St. in Lumsden. Once inside, look up, way up. Tin ceiling tile is this week’s architectural element.

Tin or metal ceiling tile was also known as pressed metal ceiling. Designed in North America in the late 1880s as a cheap alternative to the plaster ceilings found in homes in Europe, it was promoted as a "lighter, more durable, less breakable substitute for cast plaster”. Metal ceilings remained a popular building material until the late 1930s.

Unlike the concrete block industry which specialized in a single product, few sheet metal companies were devoted solely to making metal ceilings. They were more likely to also manufacture other exterior and interior sheet metal items, such as cornices, drain pipes, and roof cresting.

In addition to being cheap and easy to install, a number of other advantages were attributed to pressed metal ceilings: they were fireproof; sanitary; and durable. Of these, durability was the primary selling point. As sales catalogues of the time noted, the initial cost might be more than that of wood or plaster ornamentation, but the low upkeep and the everlasting quality of the material would save the building owner money in the long run. Even though individuals could not fabricate pressed metal in their own backyards, like they could the concrete blocks previously discussed, these advantages, made the new decorative material a popular choice for early twentieth-century architecture. Examples of pressed metal ceilings can still be found throughout the country in heritage buildings like hospitals, schools, community halls, churches, businesses and some homes.

Today, pressed metal ceilings are making a comeback in interior home decorating. Big box building stores carry several different products intended to replicate vintage tile design, from embossed wallpapers to reproduction tiles from polyurethane. It is interesting to note that, as in our example from James Street S. above, even reproduction tiles have been repurposed and can now be found on walls (either above or below a chair rail); adorning the base of an island in a kitchen; or, more commonly, as a backsplash (area between the bottom of the cupboard and the counter).