Faux Wood Workshop

We write a lot here about solid, three-dimensional faux wood beams and accessories, but let’s not forget about the flatter side of life: faux wood panels. You can find these at our sister site FauxPanels.com, and they come in styles that coordinate with some of our most popular beams and accessories.

Two of the newest panels at FauxPanels.com are Woodland and Raised Grain, and they’re each part of a larger family of faux products. The Woodland family includes custom beams, corbels and mantels. The Raised Grain family includes beams, corbels and scrolled-end beams.

When you combine solid beams and accessories with flat panels in a single project, you can get really amazing results. The photo below shows what one of our customers did with Raised Grain beams and panels to transform a high ceiling into an architectural feature that defines the entire room.

So today’s tip is simple: When you’re thinking about using faux beams for your project, think beyond the beam. Think about the flat stuff as well.

We love receiving photos from our customers showcasing the innovative, effective, and inspiring ways they have used faux wood beams to spruce up their homes. Elvia Cox, an interior redesigner from Voorhees, NJ, just sent us these fabulous shots of her dining room and kitchen, which she made-over using our sandblasted beams. The transformation is unreal; it’s hard to believe this is the same room!

“The goal of this project was to evoke the feeling of a French country-style kitchen,” says Elvia. I think you’ll agree that her vision was realized. With the warm neutrals, cornflower blues, and toile fabrics you can practically feel the French Riviera’s cool breeze waltz through the windows.

The ceiling’s faux beams, however, complete this room’s dramatic transformation (we are happy to say!). Elvia agrees, “The beams immediately added warmth and architectural interest to the room.”

Elvia, owner of Uniquely Yours Redesign, an interior redesign company based in New Jersey, is no stranger to home remodeling projects. But, even so, she loved the ease with which the beams could be installed in her own home.

“The directions for the installation of the beams on the website were excellent, and so easy to follow,” Elvia told us.

Not one to boast, Elvia downplays the success of her complete redesign. “We have received some lovely comments on this room,” she concedes. We’re sure she has! Nice work Elvia, you want to come redesign my dining room?

Have photos of your most recent faux wood beams remodeling project? Don’t be shy, send them our way.

Let’s start with a definition, for those who may be new to home remodeling and architecture lingo.

Corbel: \ˈkȯr-bəl\ A bracket of stone, wood, brick, or other building material, projecting from the face of a wall and generally used to support a cornice or arch.

These right-angled supports, most often seen along roof lines, have been used since the late centuries BCE, when China first introduced the great granddaddy of today’s corbels (called a dougong) to hold extra weight and maintain buildings’ structural integrity. And, since way back in the day, corbels have added a little extra pizzazz to said buildings’ exterior.  In Classical architecture this meant ornate marble molding, and during the French Gothic period gargoyles became all the rage.

Today, however, with feats of modern technology and engineering — basically improved man made building materials and tools—the necessity of corbels has fallen by the wayside. The extra exterior supports just aren’t needed to hold your roof up anymore.

But (lucky for us at FauxWoodBeams.com) that doesn’t mean you can’t take a cue from the days of old and use corbels to add some personality to your home.

Here are some ideas to use corbels in your redecorating:

Exterior Design

As mentioned before, the most common way to make the most out of your corbels is to use them to support (or at least pretend to support) your roof’s ledge. Choose the design and style that goes best with your home’s vibe—whether this means rough sawn wood to enhance a rustic look, or carved Cyprus for a more Victorian touch—and go to town.

You can also place your corbels below windowsills, around your garage, or fit them into other unique architectural nooks your home may have. Check out these photos for more ideas.

Interior Details

Continue your corbel design inside. One way to do this is to use the corbels to enhance your ceiling beams, be they faux or real. Simply attach the corbels to the wall at the vertex of wall and ceiling. This way your ceiling beams don’t end abruptly, but rather come to a smooth and seamless finish. Here is an example of corbels used in this way.

Maybe you don’t have visible ceiling beams. Instead, corbels can be added around a mantle or the interior of a window. Use them to hold up shelves, window curtain rods, or cabinets. Basically, scour your home for nooks and crannies that look like they need a little extra support, or just some spicing up.

Of course, we have a zillion—okay, that’s an exaggeration, we have seven—styles of corbels to choose from. Make sure you click through to check them all out, and then write back with your thoughts.

Here’s the now much anticipated (I’m sure) link to our corbels.

We’ve been saying for years that our faux wood beams and panels can be easily installed without the help of a professional. But, just because we say it’s so doesn’t make it true (or so skeptical would-be customers think). “Hah!” They scoff. “There’s no way it’s actually that easy.”  Well, we hate to disappoint them, but it is.

Recently we’ve noticed that our Testimonials page, always chock full of happy customers who have installed the beams themselves, has been dominated by women. These ladies, many of them self-professed home improvement newbies, smash all skepticism to smithereens with their newfound hammer skills.

How’s that for Girl Power? We are so proud that women who typically shy away from home installation projects feel confident and capable enough to take the reins in their remodeling efforts. Who needs a professional? Who needs a husband?

Power tool First-timer

D. Smith from Humble, TX, designed and cut Tudor trim for the exterior of her home and put together new shutters single-handedly. She wrote to us how she used her experience with sewing to aid with her faux wood beam installation:

“I am a 58-year old woman and I never had any experience with carpentry but I have been a hobby seamstress,” Ms. Smith wrote. “For this house project I made up some paper patterns and put the patterns on the wood so I would know where to cut and how to put it together.”Ms. Smith’s husband showed her the basics of using a jigsaw and router, but then she went to town on her own. “I’d never touched [the tools] before in my life,” Ms. Smith wrote. And yet he was able to cut intricate lace patterns out of fascia board.

No Man, No Problem

Karen wrote to us explaining how as a single woman she was nervous to purchase the beams and install them herself. The simple installation instructions on our website helped to assuage her worries, however. With that confidence boost she is ready to begin her project. Best of luck, Karen, you can do it!

Appearances are Deceiving

Cathy C. from Fort Pierce, FL added her own creative spin to the installation of a faux wood mantel. She and a friend decided to use the mantel as a shelf on a wall in her entrance alcove, and the women installed it themselves.

Cathy and her friend added a new stain to the mantel and then hung it high on one wall. “Visitors can’t quite believe two women installed it,” Cathy wrote to us.  “It looks so like the real thing and appears to weigh a lot.”

To view more faux wood photos, check out our gallery.

We were honored and excited to once again be a part of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Really, you have to be there to understand just what it feels like to be part of that great effort. Exciting and worthwhile and great people and hard work. Great combo.

This time we were able to help the Williams’ family, of Pine Mountain Valley, GA. Their story is inspiring. The family of four had been living in a space much too small for two disabled family members—football coach father Jeremy has Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) and the Williams’ young son, Jacob, is paralyzed from the waist down due to spina bifida. EMHE, with the help of football star Michael Oher and pop singer Demi Lovato, swept in to give the Williams’ the home of their dreams.

We donated materials for two different rooms. Take a look at what we did — it might give you some ideas for your own projects.

Faux wood beams played a major role in daughter Josie’s bedroom makeover. Rustic Barn Wood faux panels and Timber Ceiling Beams helped give horse-lover Josie a brilliant equestrian-themed room, complete with a faux horse stall and hay sofa.

In keeping with the country feel of the room, we installed our Brown Rustic Barn Wood as wainscoting panels around the room. The faux wood paneling was two panels high and cut at intervals to accommodate the long shuttered windows. Then we used faux timber planks to add a ledge to the wainscoting and frame the top section of the windows.

To finish the ceiling, we lined straight Timber faux ceiling beams, accented with beam straps, along most of the ceiling. We also used two cross beams above the horse stall area.

The EMHE team chose the Pecky Cypress faux beams to spice up the kitchen’s vaulted ceiling. You can create this look in your own home by placing one long beam to run the length of the ceiling, and then use six smaller beams to attach perpendicularly to the beam on one side and the wall on the other. Then just cut window headers to size to complete the look.

We are so proud to be a part of this deserving family’s gift.

You may find yourself from time to time flipping through Architectural Digest and coming upon the most gorgeous, multi-million dollar home of your dreams, such as the 8,000 square foot house built for Lance Armstrong in Austin, TX. Maybe you wonder how you could possibly incorporate even a small piece of its décor into your own home.

You might be surprised to learn that this home’s luxurious kitchen, complete with state-of-the-art appliances, stainless steel pendant lights and slab stone counters, was also outfitted with faux wood beams on its ceiling.

Faux wood beams can be a considerable design asset for the any homeowner, not just for cycling superstars with a team of first-class designers and unlimited resources. A fraction of the cost of real wood beams, homeowners with even a very modest budget can achieve this look themselves with just a little time and a little creativity.

Faux beams – like our high-density polyurethane models – are popular among builders and homeowners, not only for their price, ease of installation and durable material, but also for their incredible imitation of real wood’s coloring and grain texture. Certified kitchen designer (CKD) and author of The Kitchen Designer blog, Susan Serra maintains that unless structural beams are required, even the most upscale design projects will include faux beams on their ceilings and walls.

So there’s really no need to wistfully put down the magazine and imagine what could be. Take a look at this huge range of beam styles available and start making that dream a reality!

Read more about Lance’s kitchen and the faux beams featured in Architectural Digest.

On the April 4th Beach Family episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the team ventured to build the “Tree Fort Room”, using our donated faux wood Timber Planks and Barn Wood panels on the walls. Many of us in our childhood have attempted to build a fort of some type or another, be it in a tree, a snowbank or even with blankets in the living room. This project took that idea a hundred times further for the ultimate fortress fantasy.

“When we opened the door to our room, it was just so amazing.
We immediately felt like we were at home…it felt like a fort.”

The designers wanted the room to look like it appeared straight out of a kids’ imagination, with a little Robinson Crusoe thrown in. To seem as if it was built by a child, our faux wood Timber Planks were positioned at crooked angles, each bottom and top individually cut and mitered to join perfectly with the wainscoting underneath (created with Rustic Barn Wood Panels from FauxPanels.com). Cutting each plank at a different angle was a time-consuming task to say the least, but totally worth it!

Watch the video to see the boys’ reaction to seeing the Tree Fort Room for the first time, or browse through more photos of the room here. Keep your eye out for our planks and panels!

One of the more interesting customer projects that was submitted to us recently was from a 58 year old woman and her husband who teamed up to build their own house in Texas.

Having no experience with carpentry whatsoever, Ms. Smith came up with ingenious idea to incorporate her skills as a hobby seamstress to create some of the exterior design on this house using Rough Sawn faux wood planks.

“I made up some paper patterns and put the patterns on the wood so I would know where to cut and how to put it together…. The lace cut fascia board you see, I cut out myself with a jigsaw and router, after my husband showed me how to hold the tools. Never touched them before in my life.”

Ms. Smith also designed and cut the Tudor trim seen on the left side of the house, as well as cutting and installing the shutters, all also made from the Rough Sawn planks.

“We showed everyone that stopped by along the way your product and they were all amazed at how real it looked. No one can tell it isn’t wood.”

Using real wood to create a Tudor-style typically requires a massive amount of upkeep after the fact. But by choosing to use maintenance-free faux wood planking, the Smiths are saving themselves a massive amount of time, headache and expense.

Nice job Smiths!