Faux Wood Workshop

Over on our sister blog, Creative Faux Panels, we’ve just finished highlighting the incredible fireplace remodel Mike and Chris Grace completed. They used our Faux Rock Wellington Dry Stack Tierra Gold Panels to get the look of real stonework in their living room; but the finishing touch was one of our own Tuscany Faux Mantels.

The combination of a faux wood mantel shelf and faux rock panels looks terrific – practically indistinguishable from the authentic thing. But the real benefit was in the ease and practicality of installation.

“We were working on an inside wall,” Mike and Chris wrote, sending in pictures of their completed project, “so were concerned about the weight of installing a real wooden mantel. That would have required more work and money.”

With a real wood mantel weighing in at 100lbs or more, installation on an interior sheet rock wall would have been a significant investment.

Fortunately, our new Tuscany Faux Mantel weighs in at just a breath more than 7lbs – making it straightforward to install with regular trim head screws.

Molded from real timber in lightweight polyurethane, the faux wood mantel shelf fitted flush with Mike and Chris’ faux rock veneer and was sturdy enough to display potted plants and family trinkets.

What makes the use of a faux wood mantel so impressive, however, is the creative touch that Mike employed to make sure it matched his vision perfectly.

Our Tuscany faux mantel is available pre-finished, in authentic-looking cedar, oak or walnut finish, but the Graces ordered theirs unfinished so they could stain it themselves to match the rest of the wood and furniture in their living room.

You can find full instructions on how to stain our unfinished artificial wood beams and mantels right here.

As you’ll no doubt agree, the combination of dry stack veneer and the Tuscany mantel looks amazing – and both Mike and Grace are thrilled with the results.

“Friends and family have told us that our fireplace project has totally transformed our room,” Mike reports. “It now looks much more intimate and cozy.”

What do you think? And have you got a project that combines both our faux wood beams and our other top-quality faux building materials?

If so, make sure to reach out to us with pictures – we’d love to see them! Email us as info@fauxwoodbeams.com.

Frank Macari wrote to us with the story of how our faux beam helped solve a recurring problem he and his wife had with the cathedral ceiling of their beautiful Pennsylvania home.

“My wife and I purchased our home 21 years ago,” Frank wrote. “The bedroom had a cathedral ceiling and when the home was new, the seam looked good. However, as time has aged the house, the seam became increasingly difficult to keep intact.”

It has been repaired many times and due to the slight shifting of the ceiling, due to heat and cold, the crack would always come back over time.”

Due to the steaming summers and brutal winters common in Pennsylvania, Frank noticed a reoccurring crack opening up in the apex of their ceiling. “It’s been repaired many times, but due to the shifting ceiling always comes back over time.”

His solution was a simple one – covering the crack with a wooden beam – but the practicalities of this great home improvement idea were daunting.

“My wife and I talked about a beam, but because of the weight and amount of work involved, I kept putting it off.”

Eventually, Frank’s wife came up with a solution: A faux wood ceiling beam.

“She said that maybe we could buy a beam on line and keep it simple. Taking her advice, I looked on line and found www.fauxwoodbeams.com.”

The first challenge Frank encountered was the length of his cathedral ceiling: “Our room was longer than the biggest faux beam by about 8 inches.”

Fortunately, he had a brilliant idea about how to solve this problem – and we were happy to help.

“I requested a sample of the beam we were considering,” Frank wrote. “The typical length of sample was around 6 inches. I requested a sample about 9 inches and Fauxwoodbeams.com was very accommodating.”

After checking that they were happy with the sample, Frank went ahead and ordered the full-sized beam – one of our Regal Ceiling Beams. “Sure, the shipping was expensive, but worth it. It came in one long piece and undamaged.”

Now, with the 9 inch sample and the beam itself, he had the beginnings of a beam long enough to cover his cathedral ceiling. “I glued the two pieces together and let it cure. Afterwards, I used an automotive “Bondo” material and filled in the part lines. I sanded and primed, and repeated as necessary.”

Installation was straightforward – for the most part.

“The trick was how to get the beam into the bedroom in the first place, located on the second floor. In the end, we managed to bring it in through the bathroom window.”

“My wife, son and I positioned the beam close to the ceiling and I secured it with glue that I purchased from fauxwoodbeams.com and a power nailer.”

Once installed, the finishing touches were straightforward. “All that remained to be done was to fill the nail holes, caulk the edges and have the room painted. Now it was up, installed and looked beautiful.”

“My wife could not have been happier. “Mission accomplished” and now there are no more cracks in the cathedral ceiling joint.”

It’s a cold, gray day today in Deer Park NY. One of those days you just want to throw on that Snuggie-thing and huddle around the fireplace if you’re lucky enough to have one.

If words like wind chill, bitter cold and probable snow showers are part of your everyday vocabulary during the winter months, then you’ll probably be spending a lot of time around that fireplace, and you’ll want it to look its best – especially for the holiday season.

The faux wood mantel looks beautiful and was easy to install onto my newly constructed hearth. The wood stove area in my log cabin, is the highlight of my home!
- Kim, Walworth, NY

Faux wood fireplace mantels may be a good choice for you if you’re looking to spruce up the look of your fireplace design quickly and inexpensively without sacrificing your aesthetic. The average DIY’er can install one of these mantels in just a day – leaving you lots of time to decide what’s going ON the mantel, whether you want to display photos, awards, decorative pieces or anything else that conveys your sense of home.

Below are a few more examples of previous customers who installed faux wood mantels in their own homes.

Yellowstone Faux Wood Mantel

The mantel that I bought from you guys worked out wonderfully. Very good alternative to an expensive real wood beam…The stain applied easily and turned out amazing, you can’t tell it’s fake! - Luke M., Austin, TX Yellowstone Faux Wood Mantel

Bernadette from Sherwood Park, AB in Canada was getting growing increasingly frustrated in her search for an old barn beam to create a mantel that would coincide with her rustic tastes. Luckily, she had great results with the custom Woodland Mantel:

“I was getting very discouraged…until I came across your site. I ordered a mantle immediately and was completely surprised! We just finished and I think it looks amazing. No one knows it’s not the real thing.”

For more fireplace design ideas using faux wood mantels, check out our gallery of fireplaces or browse through the many styles of fireplace mantels available.

There’s nothing quite like receiving an effusive testimonial from one of our customers! Jeanette Hiscox, from Arizona, and her husband used our sand blasted ceiling beams to completely transform their home. Jeanette was able to unify her common spaces and provide a rustic charm to her previously humongous, yet bare, ceiling. Here’s what Jeanette had to say about her project, in her own words:

Jeanette’s Room Makeovers with Faux Ceiling Beams

We are thrilled DAILY when we enter our “public rooms” and see the beams on the ceiling! Everyone’s jaws just drop and then they recover with a “WOW”!  Most people ask us if the house was built with the beams and we let them know that we recently installed them.

We bought this house as our retirement abode. We liked the vaulted 16′ ceilings and all the space they created in the nearly 1300′ public room area. This area includes the dining, living, media and kitchen and kitchen dining rooms.  For the first two months after we bought the house, I was searching for a way to unify these spaces.

It took a while to convince my husband to use the faux wood ceiling beams, but now he proudly accepts compliments for the installation! Thank you for supplying the samples because that allowed us to look at the material, gave us a chance to practice custom staining the beam and practice mitre cuts. The sample practice went so well, we knew we could take on this project successfully— even if it meant staining all 15 beams that were 19′ long each!

The Ceiling Design Project Begins

From the time we ordered the faux beams from you, we were anticipating the shipment. Delivery day came and we did exactly what you instructed us to do. My husband and I helped the truck driver unload the amazingly light but really long boxes. We laid them in our driveway and proceeded to cut the straps and peel off the long corner protectors. As you know, most boxes had 4 beams but the 9″ deep “headers” arrived in individual boxes. Each beam had it’s own plastic sleeve. My husband and I easily maneuvered the beams, being careful not to stack them more than two high. We found one that was cracked and the driver so noted it and your company immediately replaced it. Initially we thought we should use one continuous piece for each beam, but after doing this project we see how one could easily piece any beam length together, just as you could wood products.

I personally primed each beam, which I found easy to do—if you have the space! I also custom-stained each beam to a rich, dark brown color. I followed the exact primer deep base product recommended on your website.  I used a Home Depot deck stain for the staining process. Personally doing this part provided me a great sense of accomplishment.

Installing the Faux Ceiling Beams

We followed your online directions: snapping chalk lines for location identification and putting up wood blocks in which to screw the beams to. Planning which beams to start with and actually installing the first one seemed to take the longest time. Once the first beam was in place, we knew this ceiling design project would have incredible results. We also spent a lot of time admiring the first two header beams once they were in place! By the way, we did this installation during the hottest month of the year— outside temps were over 100 degrees and we are nearing retirement age!

We used a mitre saw outside on saw horses that were padded as to protect the stained beams. We measured, cut and installed each beam one beam at a time. We started with the large “header” beams and worked outward. Each 17′ beam segment got 4 wood blocks installed in the ceiling to help hold it in place. We never used any glue product…it was not necessary. It took two of us two days working 5 hours per day to install the 15 beams.

We found the ceiling beams were very easy to cut, whether it was an angle cut on the ends or long lengthwise cuts. We had a couple of mitre or fussy cuts that took more attention and time— exactly as a real wood beam would need.

Beam Design Finishing Touches

We are “detail driven” people, so I did put dark color wood putty over the screw heads. I also had a little jar of stain and a small brush to re-apply the stain in a few areas as needed. I should mention that preparing the beams with primer and stain allowed me to apply these products where we made fresh cuts to the beams so there would be no original color showing.

Once again, the product was easy to work with and provided amazing results. I even told my husband to stop calling them “faux” beams and start referring to them as simply beams! Your company’s beams have helped us transform a vast plain ceiling into a spectacular 5th wall!

Thanks again,
Jeanette Hiscox

View the slideshow below to see all the photos from this project.

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!

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!”

Corbels are beautiful architectural features that add class, flair and realism to your project. A corbel visually anchors the end of a beam so it looks solid and well supported.

But how do you know what size corbel to use? The answer depends on the kind of beam you’re using.

Suppose your beams have well-defined edges that are square and straight or just slightly rounded. These include our Raised Grain, Woodland and Sandblasted beams. In this case, choose corbels that are the same width as the beams or just slightly narrower.

The first photo shows a corbel slightly narrower than the beam it supports. An equal-width corbel would also look great with this beam.

On the other hand, suppose your beams have irregular edges that are distressed and significantly rounded. Our Timber beams are like this. In this case, choose corbels that are at least a couple of inches narrower than the beams. This lets the corbel rest against the flat part of the beam and avoid overlapping the rounded edges.

The second photo shows corbelsnarrow enough to rest against only the flat part of a heavily distresssed and rounded beam.

 

Pergolas and trellises can add an elegant, stately element to your client’s property, especially in a season when they’re looking forward to spending time outside. The kits from Faux Wood Beams are easy to assemble and made of strong poly resin materials designed for long-lasting outdoor use.

A variety of styles, including Spanish, Roman, Corinthian and classically traditional allows you to match any building’s decor. Add them to a store’s entranceway, over a home’s patio/sitting area, or install one as a charming backdrop to a garden or backyard.

 

 

 

A Few Benefits of Faux Pergolas and Trellises:

• Easy to assemble and install – a typically assembly takes under 2 hours.
• Maintenance free – easing any concerns your client may have regarding upkeep
• Will not rot, warp, sag or fade
• Weatherproof and pest proof
• Extremely realistic look of wood and stone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more outdoor design ideas, visit our sister blog’s Spring Spruce-Up Series at Creative Faux Panels.