Cedar Planks for bathroom ceilings

[Eddie Fleckenstein]

My partner and I live in a three family building in Chelsea Ma ( city right next to Boston ). All three units have a single small full bathroom with no windows. Two of the three units regularly deal with mold on the ceiling.

The bathrooms are vented but they are not strong enough and need to be replaced. The unit we live in was newly renovated before we bought the property. We have lived here for a couple of months and haven’t seen any mold, but the ceiling paint in our bathroom is already cracking even though we run a fan constantly and keep the door open as much as possible.

We are in the process of renovating one of the units that became vacant. In addition to new vents we are also considering installing cedar planks on all three bathroom ceilings because it’s mold resistant and (hopefully) handles moisture better than paint.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is this a good solution? Any Alternative ideas? Would cedar ceilings have a positive or negative effect on reevaluating the value of the property?

Thanks for the help and thoughts!

Ed