Faux Wood Workshop

Installing Faux Wood Beams on Cathedral Ceiling Installing a Faux Beam on a Cathedral ceiling can be tricky. Here is a simple step by step guide to help you along. Measure the inside of the Faux Beam you will be working with. Cut two blocks of wood to fit the inside of your faux beam for every 3-6 feet. Drill pilot holes in your blocks of wood to prevent splitting when inserting screws. You must used screws that will be long enough to go through the wood block, the sheetrock or plaster, and then into the wood structure of the house. Screw in another block of wood on top of the one you just installed (remember to drill pilot holes before inserting screws into the block of wood). Repeat steps 2 to 6. Space the blocks evenly so that they are placed every 3 to 6 feet until you get to the other end wall. The last block should be about 10” to 12” from the side wall. Mark each block of wood with blue painter’s tape to make the next steps easier. Measure the length of the ceiling and cut the faux beam to fit. Dry fit the beam to ensure a proper fit. Attach the faux beam to the blocks of wood at each location that is marked with the blue painter tape, make sure to use long enough screws to go through the beam into the blocks of wood. One screw on each side of the beam at each location is sufficient. Make sure not to over tighten. Only countersink the screw a small amount. Cover up the screw heads with matched color caulk. Tip: It usually isn’t necessary to cut the top edge of the beam on a level to match the pitch of the roof. When complete, the edge of the Faux Wood Beam will butt up tight to the ceiling.

Getting a Knotty Pine look on Faux Wood Beams

Thinking about getting the knots on your new Faux Wood Beams to stand out like real knotty pine wood? Follow these few easy steps to get your beams looking great! First you must pick the stain for your beam, in this example we used American Walnut by Minwax. You will need to apply the stain to the knot area of the beam using a small paint brush. When you have finished, you will need to remove any extra stain. you can blot it off using a rag. After the stain has fully dried, you will need to coat the beam with an overall stain.We used English Oak by Minwax. You can use a larger brush to stain the whole beam. Remember to remove any extra stain. Let the beam dry and your all set! Here are some beams that a customer had this process done to. Click to enlarge

The following are a few steps in order to help you to get thoes tricky angles cut just right when installing faux beams. All that’s required is some Cardboard, a box cutter, and a saw of choice. 1.Cut a piece of cardboard to about 1 foot long and as high as your beam. 2. Hold the cardboard piece to the ceiling. 3. Fold cardboard back to get the desired angle that you want the beam to be. Make adjustments as needed. 4. Cut off folded section of the cardboard 5. Hold the cardboard up to the ceiling again to confirm the appropriate cut was made. Make any slight adjustments, if necessary.  6. Place cardboard template near the end of the beam and trace down the angle of the cardboard. 7. Cut along the line marked by the pencil, removing this side of the beam. 8. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the opposite side of the beam. 9. After both sides of the beam have beam cut, place it on the wall and make any adjustments as needed. You can also caulk or place straps on the end of the beam as desired.

Making improvements to an antique home is a task that has to be handled with care. Those professionals and homeowners that have worked on older structures know that it can be a tenuous balancing act between keeping the house functional and upright while also preserving the integrity of the home’s design.

We received these photos from two customers who both own homes that are over 80 years old. While they’ve created these looks with the help of modern materials, their choices of faux wood beams blend seamlessly with the rest of the homes to maintain their original charm.

Kathy from Ellington, CT added Rustic Ceiling Beams and Barnboard ceiling panels to keep the authentic look of her 1778 Colonial intact.

 

 

 

 

Justin Nylander from Ormond Beach, FL wrote, “I proudly own a 1924 historic Spanish Revial home. We have been enjoying restoring it to it’s former glory…and with the additon of adding these wonderful and very realistic walnut stained faux wood beams to both the kitchen and dining room, the results are stunning…Looks like they were originally installed since 1924.”

 

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.

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 corbels narrow enough to rest against only the flat part of a heavily distresssed and rounded beam.

 

Modern homes may have the benefits of clean lines, wide open spaces and tall ceilings, yet you may yearn for a few touches of old world style – charming moldings, rough cut ceiling beams or detailed arches. 

We’ve been following the progress of Jack McLauchlan from Moses Lake Washington as he has transformed his living room with various types of faux wood products. His most recent addition was a interior stairway arch that he created using Rough Sawn corbels and a leftover piece of faux wood beam from the previous year’s project.

 

The archway looks authentic and well done, especially next to the balcony-type openings to the left. The whole effect is practically Juliet-esque.

“My living room is quite an eye opener now, a far cry from the plain 22 foot wall and white ceiling that greeted us before,” Jack explained.

 
To read about how Jack started the living room project with Timber faux wood beams click here, and scroll down about a third of the page. 

Below is one of the photos that he originally sent in. (You can see how the stairway arch looked before he added the beam and corbels).

 

We’ve heard he has plans to add a faux rock wall to the room next year, we can’t wait to see what he does next!

To wrap up our series of tips on coffered ceilings (see part 1  and part 2), let’s consider the elegant look of smooth-surface beams such as the ones in our Regal  and Regal 2 lines. When you use these pre-primed beams for a coffered ceiling, you’re looking for flawless joints that don’t show under the final coat of paint.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Follow the steps in part 1  for installing the beams using double-mitered joints. As you do — no matter how careful you are — you’ll find that not all your joints are perfect. Some joints will have small cracks. Some will be uneven, with one beam a little lower or higher than the others. These imperfections don’t show with rough, distressed beams, but they do with smooth beams.

2. Fill those inevitable cracks and irregularities with auto body filler. Apply it with a flexible putty knife, making each joint as smooth as you can. Then carefully sand the filler so each joint is silky smooth. Be careful not to sand down the surfaces of the beams themselves.

3. Prime the filled areas with the primer recommended by the manufacturer of your finish paint.

4. Apply the finish paint to all the beams.

5. Admire.

6. (Optional) Show off.

Last week’s tip was about coffered ceilings with four-way mitered joints. But mitering isn’t the only approach, and sometimes it won’t work. You just can’t form a nice, neat mitered joint between beams that are irregular, rounded and heavily distressed.

 

To make a coffered ceiling with irregular beams such as our Timber or Rustic styles, use the butt-joint method shown in the photos.

1. Choose the beam style you like, and order it in two different sizes. Order the larger beams to run along the entire length of the room, and the smaller beams to bridge the short spaces between the larger beams.

2. Install the large, long beams in the usual way, following the standard installation instructions . Be sure to use adhesive along the top edges.

3. Let the adhesive set for a day, so the large beams are fully stable before you start squeezing the smaller beam pieces between them.

4. Cut pieces of the smaller beams slightly oversize, to fit snugly between the larger beams, and install them following these tips:

• Usually you can install a single support block at the midpoint of each piece. Use more supports if the piece is longer than 5 feet or the ceiling isn’t quite flat.

• Do use adhesive along the top edges of each beam piece.

• Don’t apply adhesive to the ends of the small beam piece, because it will smear all over the large beam when you squeeze the small piece into place. The snug fit will keep the joint tight.

5. If needed, fill any gaps with matching caulk or filler.

Next week we’ll have one more look at coffered ceilings, with tips for using smooth, elegant, painted beams.