Faux Wood Workshop

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.

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.

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.

Leah, from Pennsylvania, wrote to us with a question about how to install our faux ceiling beams for her kitchen remodeling project:

“My husband and I have decided that your faux wood beams are just the thing to suit the sloping ceiling in our new kitchen – but we have a question. Our kitchen is about 20’ long. How many beams should we install? And how far apart should they be?”

This is actually a common question – and there’s no right or wrong answer. That being said, we’ve got some information that might help:

Our beams are molded in tough and durable polyurethane to look exactly like the real thing; so obviously we recommend installing our artificial wood beams in a manner consistent with how “real” wood beams would appear on your roof or ceiling.

Traditionally, wooden beams were structural – so the distance between beams was more about how much support a ceiling needed, rather than what looked best.

If you’re considering installing faux beams, you should consider that when deciding how far apart you want to space them. Check out our guide to spacing faux wood beams.

The beams are also available in a range of thicknesses, so keep that in mind when planning how to install them.

In real building, thicker beams obviously gave more structural support – so you’d need fewer of them. That should be mirrored depending on the size of the beams you’ve ordered.

As a good rule of thumb, our most popular faux ceiling beams are sold in thicknesses of between 4” and 6”. In real design, you’d probably space structural wood beams about four feet apart if they were of that thickness. Therefore a convincing look can be achieved by spacing your own beams that far apart.

Thinner beams, like our 2½” beams, are created to mirror the interior ceiling beams used between the stories of older houses. These would generally be placed no more than two feet apart from each other, to give adequate support to the floorboards.

Finally, our thickest beams are the same size as sturdy structural wood beams that could practically support the entire weight of an older home. For a look that stays true to the way ceiling beams were traditionally used, you can separate our largest beams by as much as eight feet.

Remember, though, that you have a major advantage traditional builders didn’t: You’re not a slave to physics or architecture. If you feel what sounds right “on paper” won’t look good when they’re installed on your ceiling, you should adjust your installation to suit.

Ultimately, this is what Leah did when we gave her some advice on installation.

“My husband and I measured out the entire ceiling and marked the dead center line between one end of the room and the other. This was where we installed our first beam.”

“From there, we measured out the remaining space on either side of this central beam and considered what would look best. We were installing your 6” x 4” Faux Chamfered Beams and were aiming to separate them by at least four feet.

In the end, through, we realized that would look kind of goofy and asymmetrical; with the second row of beams closer to the wall than they were to the central beam.”

“So instead, we split the difference and added second and third beams midway between the wall and the central beam – a distance of 5” either side. It looked great and once they’d been installed, they looked just like they were authentic supporting timber beams.”

Our faux ceiling beams have many advantages, but perhaps the biggest is the freedom to install them how you want, according to your taste and design ideas. It’s one way in which faux wood doesn’t just look like the “real thing” – sometimes you can make it look even better.

If you have any suggestions or tips on how far apart to space your beams, let us know. Send an email and pictures to info@fauxwoodbeams.com.

Have you ever noticed that those great home makeovers you see on TV never seem quite so simple to do yourself? It doesn’t matter how many walls you paint, sofas you reupholster or cushions you throw about – your efforts never quite live up to what you see on screen.

That’s because those top TV interior designers keep a few tricks up their sleeves to work their onscreen magic – and here’s one of the best: Look up.

Look up, because your ceiling holds the key to one of their most effective design secrets. In fact, just a few changes to that commonly overlooked (or is that under looked) part of your room have the power to transform your living space.

The irony is that most people’s ceilings never get much more than a fresh coat of paint during a home remodel – and by ignoring their roof, most homeowners ignore the opportunity to transform their room.

Ceiling Beam Choices: Real, Reclaimed or Simulated Wood?

One great way to add a new dimension to your room is with the use of exposed ceiling beams. A classic architectural feature, wooden beams give your room a lofty, rustic feel and can make your room feel longer and broader.

For those living in older homes, exposing existing wooden beams is a fairly simple affair. You’ll need to pull down the plasterboard or beams covering them up and invest in new plasterboard.

And even those living in more modern homes can benefit from the design details wooden beams bring. Obviously, you won’t be able to expose existing architectural beams if your ceiling doesn’t have them – but you can always add your own.

Depending on the style and décor of your house, adding wooden beams to your ceiling could be nothing short of an interior design inspiration. Give your design plan some serious thought before hand; and if you think they make a match, you have two options:

The first are real wooden beams: For the purist, adding real wooden beams to your ceiling might seem like the way to go. The benefit, of course, is that authentic exposed beam look. The downsides, however, include not just the cost, but also the problems of installing beams safely in your ceiling. Full wood beams are very heavy, and will need to be anchored safely. This is the sort of thing most people should leave to a professional carpenter.

Your second, more practical option could be the use of simulated wooden beams. These are hollow wooden beams created specifically for mimicking the look of exposed beams, without the installation headaches.

There are many options to plump for when it comes to simulated wooden beams. For lightness and cost, you could choose polyurethane molds of real exposed timbers, which perfectly match the look of authentic wooden beams. Alternatively, go one step further with hollow beams made from actual reclaimed wood – which takes the exposed beam aesthetic one step further.

Simulated Wood Advantages

There are more advantages – not just regarding cost. The use of simulated wood beams also offers you a much broader choice of color and style and the ability to match many beams perfectly – which isn’t such an easy task when using full size, timber beams. These advantages mean you can cost-effectively match all your beams to the style and décor of your redesigned room.

Of course, simulated wooden beams aren’t for every home. They work best in larger rooms with higher ceilings – offering a new visual dimension that makes your living space look larger and broader. For smaller rooms, they can often make things cozier and more closed in (although, design gurus, perhaps that’s the look you’re going for?)

Regardless, if you’re considering using simulated wooden beams in your latest design project, check out our photo gallery, which features many styles of their simulated wood beams being used in kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and even further afield. They’re a great source of inspiration – and even better, the pictures are accompanied by design tips and tricks you won’t find on those home improvement shows.

In a recent post on our sister blog, Creative Faux Panels, we discussed a relatively easy and inexpensive way to ramp up your home’s curb appeal using faux stone exterior siding.

So now we head inside. If you’re thinking about selling your home, the kitchen is a major determining factor for most potential home buyers. It’s typically the place to be and be seen when you’re at home – cooking, eating, talking about your day, or just hanging out with the fam. So it’s important that the kitchen look its best.

Custom Aspen Beams	Timber Beams

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to undergo a large-scale, expensive overhaul, but a fresh coat of paint on the walls, replacing counter top tile and maybe staining or painting the cabinets goes a long way.

But don’t forget to look up! The ceiling is a major surface area in the room, and should be given its due attention. Many of our customers have used different styles of our faux wood beams to enhance the look of their kitchen ceilings, with great results. Second only to looking great, these homeowners saved even more money with the ability to install the beams themselves.

Custom Woodland Beams

Your kitchen already checked off your list? See faux wood beams in action in other rooms and get even more ideas to get your home sell-ready.

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.

 

There is a ton of information and knowledge out there on how to retrofit a house properly to minimize damage caused by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, especially in those areas right in the heart of the action like Southern California.

One consideration is a home’s ceiling beams. A real wooden beam that can weigh up to hundreds of pounds can be a somewhat ominous thing to have hanging over your head during an earthquake. Homeowners or builders may want to take their safety precautions a step further by choosing polyurethane wood for their ceiling beams rather than traditional wood. A typical faux wood beam weighs an average of 20 lbs, so if in the event of an earthquake or heavy winds strong enough to cause a beam to fall, the lightweight faux version would cause a lot less damage or chance of injury.

Tammy from Southern California sent in the photo of her beautifully finished kitchen and living rooms area with Timber faux wood beams and wrote, “The faux wood beams were the way to go for me. The first reason I looked into them was I live in So. Cal and I wasn’t sold on having a heavy wood beam on the ceiling and the chance of it not holding up in an earthquake…When the project was complete everyone complimented on how beautiful it was and no one even knew it was faux!”

When you butt one beam into the side of another one, you want the joint to be so tight that it’s invisible.

With smooth beams, you can just cut the butting beam square, and it should fit against the main beam without a problem. It’s a different story with rough, distressed beams.

Sure, you can cut the beam square, butt it to the main beam, and fill the gap with caulk. But you’re likely to have a lot of gap to fill, and the result can look messy and unprofessional.

To do it right, you should scribe the end of the butting beam to match the contours of the main beam. All you need is a simple circle-drawing compass and a jigsaw or coping saw.

1. Lay the beams together as shown in the photo, at the exact position where they’ll meet.

2. Spread the compass an inch or so. Hold it flat and slide it up along the beams as shown, so the point follows the surface of the main beam while the pencil draws a line on the butting beam. Do this all the way around the top and the other side.

3. Tilt the jigsaw shoe to an angle of 10-15 degrees, so that you’ll cut away more material toward the center of the beam and make a sharper outer edge. Carefully cut along the scribed line on all three sides of the beam. You can also use a coping saw.

4. Test fit the beam, and remove any high spots with a coarse file until you have a perfect fit.

5. Stain the cut end of the beam to prevent any possibility of raw polyurethane showing through a crack in the joint.

Now you’re ready to install the beams and have the satisfaction of seeing a perfectly invisible joint.

No one can claim that making a coffered ceiling is quick and easy. Faux beams make the job a lot easier, but there’s an art to making each joint look good and stay tight. Here’s the best way to create perfect four-way mitered joints.

1. Carefully plan, measure and lay out the grid pattern of the coffers. Snap a chalk line on the ceiling along the center line of each beam to make a checkerboard with perfect right angles.

 

 

2. For each intersection on the checkerboard, make a crossed mounting block from two pieces of 2-by lumber. Rip each piece to the exact width of the inside of the beam, and make its length about three times its width. Screw and glue the two pieces together at right angles. Then anchor each crossed block to the ceiling aligned with the chalk marks.

 

3. Take time and care cutting and dry-fitting each beam. At each four-way intersection, miter each beam in a V using a precision miter saw.

4. Stain the mitered edges to match the finished beam. This helps hide any imperfections in the joinery.

5. Mount the beams to the blocks. To lock everything together as a single unit, use adhesive on every mating surface: the mitered edges, the inside of the beam where it slips over the mounting block, and the edges of the beam that touch the ceiling. Apply a light bead, slightly back from exposed edges to avoid squeeze-out. Screw through the sides of each beam into the mounting blocks as usual.

 

6. Carefully wipe away any excess adhesive that squeezes out.

 

7. Step back and admire the perfect joints that will stay that way for a long, long time.

There are many elements that need to come together to make a kitchen appear cozy and welcoming rather than utilitarian. Cupboards, flooring, lighting and countertops are just a few of the things that need to be considered for the heart of the home. But what about the ceiling?

 

 

Brenda and her family from Santa Rosa, CA installed Woodland faux wood ceiling beams in their kitchen as an “easy and a fun project to do together”. Brenda sent us these photos to show off the beautiful final result. Way to go!