We build suspended plasterboard ceilings in apartments, villas and townhouses across Málaga province: flat ceilings across a whole room, lowered sections over kitchens or hallways, and cove ceilings that house a hidden LED strip. The ceiling is planned with the lighting from the start, electrical work is carried out by authorised partner installers, and the finished ceiling is skimmed at the joints and painted. Height, services and access panels are checked before building.
Why install a suspended ceiling?
Owners usually come to us with one of a few goals. Some want to cover an old ceiling that is cracked, stained or textured with gotelé. Others need to hide services: a pipe crossing the ceiling, cables for new lighting or, in some homes, the ducts of an air-conditioning system installed by another company. Many want a modern lighting scheme with downlights or a perimeter cove that bathes the walls in indirect light.
A suspended ceiling handles all of these at once. It creates a cavity where services run unseen and where lights are fitted flush with the surface. It can also improve the feel of a room acoustically when insulation is added above the boards.
What is a cove ceiling?
A cove ceiling (techo foseado) has a recess around its edge or along one side, in which an LED strip is hidden. The light shines upwards or sideways onto the ceiling and walls rather than straight down, which produces a soft, even glow without visible light sources. It is one of the most requested features in the homes we work on, and you can see examples in our project photos of hallways and living rooms.
Coves work best on smooth, well-finished surfaces, because light grazing along a wall reveals every bump. That is why we often combine them with wall skimming. The lighting design side is explained in our guide to indirect ceiling lighting.
How much ceiling height will I lose?
That depends on what needs to go into the cavity. A ceiling that only covers an uneven surface and holds slim downlights can sit close to the original. A ceiling hiding a drainage pipe or ducting must drop further. Coves take additional depth at the perimeter, but the centre of the ceiling can stay higher, which helps rooms with limited height.
We measure the available height during the visit and show you on site where the new ceiling would sit. In many older Spanish apartments ceilings are generous, but in others every centimetre counts. We also check where lowering a ceiling would interfere with windows, door heads or wardrobe tops.
Who does the electrical work in the ceiling?
The ceiling structure, boards and finishes are ours. The electrical installation, including new circuits, LED drivers, downlights and switching, is carried out by authorised partner installers under our coordination, so you still deal with a single point of contact. Lighting is planned before the framing goes up, because cables, boxes and drivers need to be in place before the ceiling is closed.
In Andalusia, low-voltage installations carried out by an installation company are documented with an installation certificate (CIE) issued by that company. Whether a particular lighting change requires one depends on its scope (to be verified by the partner installer for each job).
What about access to pipes, valves and equipment?
Anything in the cavity that may need maintenance, such as valves, junction boxes, drivers for LED strips or the indoor units of air-conditioning systems, must remain accessible. We plan discreet access panels that sit flush with the ceiling and can be painted to match. Drivers for LED strips are positioned where they can be reached without opening up the ceiling.
This is one of the details that is easy to forget and expensive to fix afterwards. Our article on what can go wrong with a suspended ceiling covers it among other common pitfalls.
How is a suspended ceiling built?
The new ceiling level is marked around the room with a laser. Perimeter tracks are fixed to the walls, hangers are fixed to the existing ceiling, and the main framing is levelled from them. The framing is planned around light positions, access panels and any coves. Electrical work and any insulation go in before the boards are fixed.
Boards are screwed to the framing, joints are taped and filled, edges and coves are finished, and the whole surface is sanded and checked under raking light before priming and painting. We explain these stages so you know what a professional job looks like; it is not a guide for doing the work yourself.
Which rooms benefit most from a new ceiling?
Hallways are often the first candidates. They are narrow, they usually have no natural light, and a lowered ceiling with a lit cove or a line of downlights transforms them from a dark corridor into a feature. Kitchens come next, because they need strong, even light over worktops and often have pipes or extraction ducts to hide. In living rooms the ceiling is frequently used to define zones in an open-plan space, for example a lowered section over the dining table.
Bedrooms benefit from softer, indirect light around the bed or a wardrobe wall. Open-plan spaces in villas, where the ceiling covers a large area, are where flatness and careful joint finishing matter most, because any imperfection is visible across the whole room.
What should the quote for a ceiling show?
A clear quote lists the ceiling area in square metres, coves and lowered sections in linear metres, access panels, insulation if included, cut-outs for downlights, finishing and painting. Electrical work by the partner installer is shown on its own lines. If the old ceiling has gotelé or loose material that must be dealt with first, that is listed too. For the factors that drive cost, see presupuestoreforma.eu. Plasterboard walls built in the same job are described on our plasterboard page.
Official sources
Bauman Raymond Attila · Quitar Gotelé Málaga · Avenida Antonio Belón 3, Marbella. Last reviewed: 05/11/2026.
