There is beadboard wallpaper that looks pretty good -- at least in the pictures I've seen (never saw it in person). You might want to consider that.

The problem with using wallpaper on the ceiling is every lump and bump will show thru. I've used this same wallpaper in DDs play room.

We have a beadboard-type ceiling (it's a little wider than beadboard and comes in strips that are two planks wide with a tongue and groove) and there is no drywall under it. Is that not an option? (Honestly I don't know .. it might be a code thing. We have an old house that seems to have been grandfathered out of a lot of code-related things).

Don't use wallpaper. Previous owner here used wallpaper and then at some point it was painted (probably because the original wallpaper was bright red with yellow flowers from the 50s).

The result is seams in my ceiling the width of wallpaper. Because of the wallpaper/paint factor it is now fairly impossible to remove so my choices for when we renovate the kitchen are to do a complete teardown of the ceiling, it is plaster board, so huge mess, or go over the whole thing with drywall. The wallpaper will add a few days just for labor for drywalling, mudding and painting.

A kitchen ceiling will get dirty from an occasional cooking mishap and wallpaper is not as easy to clean as paint or wood.

I have beadboard in my kitchen and love it. It's one of my favorite features. Here is a link:

Here is a link that might be useful: My kitchen

You can never go wrong with beadboard... I so want a beadboard ceiling in my kitchen. DH is not cooperating on this one.

Maybe one day he will owe me big time and then I can get beadboard.

aokat- Your kitchen is gorgeous. I love the clean look of all the white. And the touch of black to ground it. Also love the mix of upolhstered chairs w/the wooden ones.
wi-sailorgirl- I have gotten some conflicting info regarding the drywall as a fire code thing. My house is older as well, mid 50s. I will have to look into clarification on that point.
There a pic on houzz with just battens on the ceiling. Theirs is all wood construction but I'm thinking I could get the same effect w. just drywall.

aok15- Your kitchen is stunning! I love the ceiling and your choices in the kitchen. Now I am considering that I could do beadboard and not have to deal with the ceiling issue.

I have battens on my current ceiling! I tore down the square drop ceiling tiles in the kitchen cause I couldn't stand them anymore. They were stapled to battens on the old plaster ceiling. My DH swore if I pulled those battens down that the ceiling would come down with them, so... I scrubbed it all up, patched a couple areas, ordered some anaglypta wallpaper which fit nicely between the battens with no seams and painted it all white. Now, there were some bumps in the old ceiling, so it's not perfect like new drywall would be but I think it looks very nice, actually.

Here, I found a pic mid remodel mess from about 4 years ago.( and now I'm having flashbacks to what a LOOONNGG drawn out mess that reno was.. and today the window still isn't trimmed! HA! But I digress.)

(ooohhh, garden tomatoes... :(

I have a beadboard ceiling in the kitchen that I absolutely love, although DH still reminds me about what a PITA it was to install. I tell him SOOO worth it. In fact, we talked about it just this morning. I was gone all day Saturday, and he sneakily installed those ugly firestop canisters under my vent hood. I told him before I didn't want them to be seen so I forbade him to put them in. This morning at the cooktop, what did I find tucked up securely out of site? I'm OK with his installation because you can't see them unless you put your head under the hood. He called me later and I gave him a hard time about his sneaky project. He said far better to have $300 worth of damage from a cooking fire than many thousands, and what would my ceiling look like? Gotta love a safety conscious hubby. He's not worried about my inattentive cooking, but that of our teenagers.

If I were to do my kitchen again, this ceiling would be on my must have list.