Faux Wood Workshop

We love getting stories and photos of customers’ home improvement projects using our faux wood products. Even more exciting, though, is when we hear from customers who’ve taken their home remodeling ideas one step further – like customer Mark Baillie from Oakland, Ontario.

Mark's A-frame roof had a supportive piller in the center. He built around it.

“Here are some pictures,” he wrote, enclosing snaps of his A-frame home in Oakville.

“Your company should definitely post these photos on your site because I couldn’t find any applications that were similar. Somebody will find this really useful.”

Mark was attempting to install our sandblasted beams on the apex of his A-frame ceiling.

Two challenges presented themselves. Firstly, there was a pre-installed ceiling fan he had to build around. Secondly, the roof already had a supporting beam at the point the two sides met.

“If you notice, the beam had to be placed over top of the A-frame beam as a cover. That meant there had to be a few alterations of the product to make it work.”

Our faux wood beams can be cut and altered easily with a regular wood saw

Firstly, Mark had to cut a hole in the beam to mount the ceiling fan. Then, he had to cut space to let the central supporting beam pass through the faux wood cover.

“The center supports had to be removed to fit over top of the support beam,” Mark explains. “Fortunately, your product is extremely versatile and made the alterations very easy to accomplish.”

Because our faux wood beams are molded from light and durable polyurethane, Mark was able to make the alterations quickly and easily; using a regular drill and wood saw to cut the beam where he needed.

“In the end,” Mark writes, “the result was amazing!” His pictures confirm that – and hopefully the technique he used to build around the existing supporting beam will help other faux wood customers faced with the same challenge.

Mark's faux wood beam ran the entire length of the ceiling.

The ceiling fan joist passes straight through the hollow faux wood beam.

Mark cut the hole for the ceiling fan with a regular electric drill.

Our faux beams are popular because they offer an easy and affordable way to add period character to even modern homes. But Mary and Adam, from New England, gave our timber beams the ultimate thumbs up when they used them in their beautiful historic home.

Faux wood planks on the wall perfectly mimic colonial building techniques

“We’ve spent 14 years restoring a small, 230 year old house in New England,” write Mary and Adam Spencer, enclosing pictures of their stunning property. “I’m proud to say our restoration has even been featured in national magazines and books.”

“We’re fortunate enough to have the original hand hewn beams exposed in two of the rooms. We love the warm look of them, and really wanted some elsewhere in our home. Unfortunately cost and structural issues made getting solid wooden beams installed impractical.”

Mary and Adam found the answer on FauxWoodBeams.com.

“We recently ordered 3 of your long faux timber beams for the room, as well as some of the timber faux wood planks and corbels.”

“We used the corbels up against our real wood beams in the 4 corners of our bedroom, and installed the faux wood planks diagonally on the walls. The corbels exactly matched our original beams, and the timber planks instantly created the early, timber-framed cottage look we wanted!”

“In the dining room, we followed your installation instructions, and putting up the faux beams and timbers was easy. We are so thrilled with the results.”

Faux wood beams and faux wood corbels blend seamlessly with the existing, historic wood

What’s so impressive aren’t just the results – which you can see from these before and after pictures. It’s the fact that faux wood blended so seamlessly with the real thing; even in a house as historically significant as this one.

That’s an observation Mary and Adam have made, too. “We have a bed dated 1686, and you will see in our ‘after’ photos that it looks now as if it is in an original room of the period.”

“We are very picky about what we do in the house, and choose all our products with care. We’re ” The greatest vote of confidence they could give us? “We’ve ordered more timber planks for the walls in the living room – and we have three friends we’ve told about your company, and they plan to order as well!”

A couple of weeks ago, we showed you an incredible video from customer Simona Dombrauskaite – Kitchen Remodeling with Faux Timber Beams. After several people emailed us to find out more, we approached Simona to learn how she went about transforming her dining room design with artificial wood beams.

Simona paired the artificial wood beams with wood veneer for a really rustic look.

“Ever since we bought it, we wanted to create a warm cozy and welcoming feeling to our property,” writes Simona, enclosing pictures of the completed project. “We wanted to turn it into our home, not just our house.”

“My husband brought up the idea for the rustic wood beams on the dining room ceiling, to give it more elegance and character instead of having a plain, boring ceiling. Well, after many searches and few visits to the supply stores, we quickly realized it’s impossible to hang up real lumber beams – because they’re too heavy and expensive.”

“Fortunately, I happened to come across www.fauxwoodbeams.com. What I found there was very reasonably priced – and, more importantly, seemed easy and quick to install.”

“We received the order right on time – and the installation was as easy as promised, because the beams are very light to handle! You simply manufacture the best product for our decorative needs.”

Now they’re up and installed, Simona is thrilled with the result.

“Everyone that visits our home is fascinated by how tasteful and elegant our house has become. It’s stunning! None of our guests ever notice that the beams aren’t real wood. They can’t take their eyes of them – they just keep looking up and staring!”

What sold Simona and her husband on artificial wood beams was how vividly realistic they were.

What was really important for Simona was that her husband liked the artificial wood beams as much as she did.

“My husband is a fine artist, and because of that it wouldn’t be easy to convince him to use some poor quality cheesy stuff. He has a demanding vision and mindset, and is extremely picky when it comes to materials in decorating our home.”

That’s where receiving a free sample in the mail made such a different – convincing Simona’s husband that the beams would look authentic.

“That was what ultimately sold us on them,” she explains. “Their great, natural look.”

One thing we’re always being asked is how to make wood trusses with our faux ceiling beams. The good news is that building them is affordable and easy – and the results can look incredible.

Wood trusses can add truly astonishing visual impact to a room.

Trusses are a common feature of old buildings; especially period churches and cathedrals, which were the modern skyscrapers of their day.

These structural frames supported towering roofs; allowing huge open-plan rooms to be constructed without pillars or columns getting in the way.

In the modern age, the need for wood trusses has largely been eliminated. A single metal girder can often support a roof that several solid timber beams once held up.

Yet the look of a wooden truss is still striking and desirable; which is why we’ve seen many of our customers build their own using our faux timber beams.

Choosing faux wood to build a truss makes a lot of sense. Our ceiling beams are made from hollow, high-density polyurethane – weighing a fraction of what solid timber beams would.

This means a regular ceiling can support their weight without reinforcement or support; which would be essential to safely use real timber to create a decorative truss.

Faux ceiling beams can also be cut to size simply and easily with a regular wood saw – and attach to the ceiling, or each other, with mounting blocks and regular screws.

In fact, it’s that which makes them so ideal for building a truss with. Check out our guide to installing a truss and you’ll see how steel cable, trim head screws and eyebolts can quickly and easily be used to assemble visually stunning creations.

With faux wood beams, cutting components to size requires only a regular wood saw - and accurate measurements!

The trick is pre-planning. Think hard about the truss design and pencil it out to work out exactly how it will go together, and what faux wood materials you’ll need.

This is an area in which a contractor might be useful; but many of our customers have sent in astonishing truss pictures featuring designs they created entirely by themselves.

Our truss design system page will give you a lot of inspiration – it includes a slide show featuring a number of common truss designs inspired by real life ceiling structures.

You can make your design as complicated as you want, but many of our customers tell us the key to a really successful truss is simplicity.

Faux wood trusses are intended to mimic real-life structural beams; which were once built for strength and practicality; not for what looked good.

If you’re considering adding a truss to your ceiling, let us know how it goes. We’d love to see pictures and share any tips or tricks you have on the Faux Wood Workshop. Email them to us at info@fauxwoodbeams.com.

Jim, from Southern California, wanted to take coloring and staining our faux beams a step further to create a weathered wood look full of character.

The star-shaped blossom of faux wood beams is a stunning addition to the dining room

Take a look at the photos Jim sent us of his southern California home and one thing becomes obvious; he’s a man with a passion for attention to detail.

Which is why the fact that he chose our raised grain ceiling beams for his home makeover is a testament to how incredibly real they look.

But even though Jim wrote to us to say “your beams are so cool”, when it came time to install them in his own home, he wanted to add a personal touch.

“We came up with a new method to paint your beams to make them look really weathered,” he wrote, enclosing pictures.

“We had an artist and contractor build a blend of stains, sand, glue and grout in a two-step process to really make them look aged.”

As you can see from the photos, the results are impressive.

Jim’s trick was to order our beams unfinished. Made from durable, molded polyurethane they take regular wood stain and paint just like the real thing; allowing home decorators to get a unique look that perfectly matches the other colors in their home.

An elegant faux wood truss livens up the living room ceiling

If you’re not feeling artistic, our beams are also available in a variety of different wood colors; intricately detailed to perfectly mimic real wood.

Jim then took our beams even further. In his living room, he created a beautiful wood truss design; plus a stunning star-shaped arrangement over the dining table.

Because our beams are breathtakingly light in comparison to real wood – and you can cut them easily with a regular wood saw – the limits of what you can do with them are ultimately only limited by your imagination.

And imagination, it seems, is something Jim has in abundance.

Thanks for sending your pictures in, Jim! And if you feel your own faux wood beam project rivals his, make sure to show us. Email your pictures to info@fauxwoodbeams.com.

Using our synthetic wood products for your home exterior design is a great way to get that period or historic look. But what if other parts of your home’s exterior don’t match up – like modern kitchen or bathroom vents? Don’t worry; we’ve got just the thing.

Gable vents are a tiny detail - but ultimately complete the exterior redesign

When Dave and Rosemary retired to Arizona, they wanted a home that suited how they saw themselves.

“Weathered, experienced; but here to stay,” jokes Dave.

That’s why they invested in turning the exterior of their modern ranch into something that better suited the relaxed, cosy Sun City community they’d moved to.

“We spackled the whole front of the house, to give it an adobe look,” Rosemary explains, “then we added faux wood shutters and white-painted rafter tails from FauxWoodBeams.com. It gave it a really classic, southwestern appearance.”

“Almost,” Dave corrects her.

That “almost” was the one detail that spoiled the illusion Dave and Rosemary were trying to create. While the rest of their redesign gave their 10-year-old home the appearance of one much older, ugly kitchen vents on the front wall were irrevocably modern in style.

“They just looked wrong,” Dave explains. “They were a modern detail and didn’t go with the aesthetic we were aiming for; but we didn’t know how to solve the problem.”

The answer came when Rosemary was surfing the FauxWoodBeams.com website for interior beams. She spotted our range of gable vents and realized that they’d be the perfect way to disguise the ugly, modern vents.

“Installing them was easy, too,” Dave tells us. “I simply removed the existing vents and placed the new gable vents straight over them.” A covering with spackle to match the rest of the exterior hid the backing from view; and gave the instant illusion of real terracotta vents poking out of the wall.

Our gable vents are available in a huge variety of styles and sizes, including round and half-round functional vents, plus purely decorative square vents with or without backing.

Molded from the same tough, durable polyurethane as our synthetic wood beams, they’re the perfect compliment to an exterior design; and breathtakingly easy to install.

“Strictly speaking, it’s a tiny detail,” Rosemary admits, “but makes a huge difference to how the exterior of the house looks. Compared to the neighbors, our house now looks like its been standing their for over fifty years; and we get compliments about it every day.”

Simona Dombrauskaite, from Florida, sent in a video of her kitchen remodeling project that shows us experts how it’s done!

Simona’s family installed our faux wood Timber beams in record time.

When it came to redecorating their beautiful kitchen, Simona’s family decided to go all out. They created a full-wood look by pairing laminate roofing with our Timber beams – and then installed them in record time. You can see the results in the video below. It’s pretty impressive!

In our defense, the time-lapse probably helped. But regardless, Simona’s video illustrates just how easy our beams are to put into place. While installation took just a few seconds on video, it only took minutes or hours more in real life – showing how the whole process can be accomplished over the course of a weekend, or on a day off.

Unlike the real things – which can easily weigh over 100lbs – faux wood beams can be moved into position by a single person, and they attach to ceilings with mounting blocks and regular screws. They can also be mounted to a variety of ceiling surfaces; which is something Simona and her family took full advantage of.

They decided to give their kitchen ceiling the full-wood look by pairing the beams with laminate boarding, similar to the stuff many people use on their floors at home. They installed the laminate first, plank by plank, then drilled mounting blocks straight through which they installed the Timber beams on.

The results look great, largely because the laminate they picked matched our Timber beams perfectly. Another option they could have gone for, though, was a full ceiling system from FauxWoodBeams.com; one that includes matching faux wood panels which can cover a larger area than laminate beams, and looks just as good (if not better.)

We love to receive videos and pictures from customers about how they used our products in their homes. If you have a video you’d like to share with us, make sure to drop us an email at info@fauxwoodbeams.com. We’d love to feature it here!

Attention to detail is the secret to a luxurious look. That’s a truth demonstrated by one of our customers from Biloxi, Missouri; who used our Tuscany beams to frame her stunning fireplace with a luxurious ceiling design.

Before, Charlene's ceiling was kind of bare and luckluster.

If there’s one thing Charlene Moschella knows, it’s luxury. As part of the emerging luxury property industry in Biloxi, Missouri, she has an eye for detail and a knack for interior design. That much is obvious in the unorthodox way she approached adding a fireplace to her stunning living room.

For most of us, the only thing needed to add a fireplace centerpiece would be the fireplace itself. For others, with more of eye for design, accessories like faux stone panels could give them the look they were going for. Charlene, however, went a step further.

She used our Tuscany Faux Wood Beams as a stunning addition to her ceiling; which simultaneously created a breathtakingly subtle framing mechanism to draw the eye straight to the newly installed fireplace at the far wall of the room.

The look works so well because Charlene created her ceiling design from two different thicknesses of our faux wood beams. Molded from durable polyurethane, Tuscany Faux Wood Beams are available in widths and depths from 4” across, to over 13”.

That meant Charlene was able to install two thick horizontal beams as the “supports” (even though they didn’t actually support anything) and then run thinner beams across the angled room; giving the impression of a structural, practical framework that had been there as long as the roof had.

This strategic use of faux wood beams directs the eye right to her fireplace.

Perhaps the most subtle design cue, though, was the way Charlene left the gap between both horizontal beams bare. Some designers might have been tempted to bridge that gap with more beams – perhaps of the same width as the ones running down the angled ceiling.

But by leaving that bare channel between both sides of the ceiling, the beams act like gun sights; directing the eye towards the fireplace without distraction.

Check out the before and after pictures and tell us what you think of Charlene’s inspired ceiling design. Have you got any tips or tricks about how to focus people’s eyes when they enter a room? We’d love to hear about them; or see any pictures you have.  Send us a message to info@fauxwoodbeams.com. We may even feature them here!

Forest fire wiped Four Mile, CO off the map – but residents are returning; and using Class A fire rated faux wood to rebuild their homes.

The Four Mile blaze devastated thousands of acres of forest

In September last year, a devastating forest fire hit the residents of Four Mile, Colorado – wiping 169 homes off the map and devastating 6,200 acres of beautiful mountainside.

Igniting on Labor Day, the blaze burned so hot that one resident saw his expensive titanium racing bike melt away – which would have required temperatures of over 3,000 degrees.

But a year later, homeowners left with nothing are already starting to rebuild – some using faux wood as decoration.

First was Larry Rasmussen, who’d bought his tiny mountainside cabin in Four Mile over forty years ago. He received a certificate of occupancy to return to the mountain on July 11, and his 800 sq. ft. home has already been rebuilt – giving Larry one of the simplest, yet greatest satisfactions of his life back:

“I can have my cup of coffee again,” he says, “and read my paper and look out at the mountains.”

Other residents are using the job of rebuilding as an opportunity to bring new innovation to the mountain; including the use of “green” technology like solar panels to reduce their impact on the environment.

Homes that had stood for a century or more were destroyed by fire

But other innovations are more practical. When residents Richard Nuzzi and Stephanie O’Hearn came back to the mountains to rebuild their home of 11 years, they made sure to invest in fire retardant materials that would also help protect them should they fall victim to another forest fire.

This included a roof system that would spray the interior of the home with fire retardant foam if another fire hit; and the decision to use Fire Rated faux wood materials rather than the real thing.

The heart of the Colorado mountainside is where you’d normally expect to see beautiful wooden homes, and the use of real timber beams and walls as decoration. Yet faux wood offers a great alternative that could help prevent a repeat of the devastation which swept the community in 2010.

Residents are using modern fire rated materials - including faux wood - to rebuild and redecorate

Class A Fire Rated faux wood beams and other artificial wood products last longer when exposed to high temperatures; and don’t help fires spread from one material to the other. Although Class A Fire Rated faux wood beams will eventually succumb to heat and extreme temperature, it takes longer; and can help protect other parts of a building.

Residents of Four Mile are using a variety of faux wood materials from various sources to redecorate their homes – not all of it from FauxWoodBeams.com. But if you’re interested in using fire retardant beams in your own home, check out our page about Fire Rated products and which options are available to you.

Hurricane Irene devastated the eastern seaboard last weekend; with millions of Americans suffering devastating damage to their homes and properties.

Faux wood outlookers are a great way to add a rustic look to your roof

Fortunately, many ultimately escaped with relatively minor damage; flooding basements, roof damage, fallen trees and other inconveniences that were chilling warning about how much worse it could have been.

And while cleaning out waterlogged basements and hammering in new shingles is time consuming and expensive, many homeowners are taking regular repair projects and expanding them those home design schemes they’ve been putting off for a while.

Our faux wood ceiling beams and other faux products are great tools for making those repairs turn into impressive redesign projects.  Our faux wood beams look great in finished basements, and our outlookers and rafter tails can transform the appearance of the exterior of your home.

And, even better, you’ll be able to instantly save 5% this Labor Day when you order using a special Labor Day sale coupon exclusively available from FauxWoodBeams.com.

Labor Day sale coupon

It’s easy to use. Just fill up your online shopping cart and enter the Labor Day sale code at checkout – SMP11.

This savings code is valid throughout September 5, 2011 – and must be used at the time of purchase and cannot be combined with any other savings or sale offer.

Let us know what you buy! And if you send in before and after photos of your project to info@fauxwoodbeams.com, we’d love to use them on our blog.