How to Install a Runner in a New Ceiling

Measure from the starting wall out to where your first full panel will start. Mark this measurement with a pencil. Place a chalk line at the pencil mark and snap it so that the measurement is marked all down the length of your ceiling joists.

Measure 4 feet from the chalk line and make another mark. Again, snap a chalk line along this mark, the length of the room. Continue this process until you have reached the opposite side of the room.

Screw small eye hooks into every third ceiling joist, along the chalk lines. Cut 16-gauge wire to a length longer than you will need to hang your ceiling panels at the desired height. Thread the wires through the eye hooks and twist them around themselves three times to hold them in place.

Stretch some string across the room from one side to the other. The string should be placed at the height you will be setting the runners.

Place the first runner at the first chalk line. Lower the ends of the runner onto the perimeter support molding until it touches the string. Thread the wire through the nearest hole, bend the wire up and wrap it around itself to support the runner to the height of the string. Repeat this process with the other eye hooks and wires along the runner.

Hang the second runner below the next chalk line. Repeat the process of resting the ends on the perimeter support molding. If the room is longer than your runners, connect two runners together at the end by inserting the tabs from one runner into the slots of another runner. If the room is shorter than your runners, use a tin snips to cut the runner shorter.

Screw an eye hook into the joist above any runner connections you need to make. Support this connection with wire in the same way you did in the previous steps.