I agree with Linda,why so worried about the ceiling make the rest of the room " pop" and draw peoples attention elsewhere, Ps I am seriously currently doing the same as you, follow my daily progress @ hr01 "activity's"on my Houzz page

Thanks for sharing your pictures and I will definately follow your progress. Your basement looks like it has a pretty decent height. Mine is only about 7 feet tall (our house was built in the early 20's) and having 2 friends that are 6'5" & 6'6".....it's kinda "In your face" so that is why I'm wanting to do SOMETHING to help cover it up. Thanks for sharing Eilene

If you post some photos and draw a floorplan, you will get more responses. What will be the function of the basement once you get it fixed up?

I would try to spend some on covering the ceiling appropriately....and if the blocks are not trashed, paint them...painted cinderblock can look very very cool....if your floor is cement, you also could paint that a color as well..

ideas

Our walls are not in very good shape which is why I'm not going to paint them. Because of the area that I'm going to frame in...I only have to frame up 2 walls....so that won't be too costly which gives me more money for the floor & ceiling. Thanks

The right half of the the basement I have built a storage unit in the front part & a laundry room in the back part (since it's an old house & we didn't have any closets so the laundry room has lots of hanging space). The back part of the left side of the basement is a small room that I framed in as a pantry & hopefully, down the road, a small bathroom. So, I only have to frame in the front part of the left side (which is only 2 outer walls). It's approximately 15' W x 30' L. I am in a sewing & card group that sometimes meet at my house & it will give my husband a place to go watch tv and not have to sit & listen to all of us women "talking" and also a place for parties. I already have a bar, plenty of older "neat" furniture & I love the 40's - 50's era (Rat Pack - Martini Lounge era). So that's the layout and design mode I have in mind. Thanks so much for all your responses.

I had a friend in college who bought a silk parachute from an army surplus store, died it pink and hung it on his dorm ceiling. It was really cool. His light was in the center.

I had the same issue with the basement, which I was using as a kids playroom and laundry. I taped off the metal duct work with newspaper and left it metal, but rented a sprayer and painted the ceiling, wires, everything else off white. It really brightened it up.

Combining the lattice framework with the parachute cloth idea could work. Attach fabric to lattice first with a staple gun, then put up the lattice. You'd have to be careful not to get the fabric or framework near anything such as hot ductwork that could set either on fire.

Being from a small town....not sure if I could find a parachute, but I had thought about running the lattice down the middle & then attaching a big canvas drop cloth out each side of it. I could pull that tight & it would be a nice off-white color. Thanks

I have same problem, I think we are going to do breadboard paneling. I think it's about 20 a board (4x8')

I love beadboard....I've used that for other things. I was thinking with the lattice though that I could hang the clear light bulbs down thru it without having to cut out for anything. Was somewhere years ago and they had lattice on the ceiling with the clear light coming down thru it but they also had some grape leaves & some of those grape clusters that light up too.....looked pretty neat.