A FauxWoodBeams.com customer gave his modern home a little medieval style, with the help of Custom Heritage Beams in Dark Walnut.
Just last month we wrote about how our products can offer a lot more than just the realistic look of natural timber in your home. Our dark wood beams are perfect for adding a framework to large, open ceiling spaces; showcasing the space and adding a much-needed sense of scale.
This was the challenge our customer Ashok faced. He bought a beautiful two-level home in Illinois with a towering vaulted ceiling. It’s a beautiful architectural design that floods the space with natural light – but the ceiling itself looked extremely barren with nothing to break it up.
Fortunately, Ashok had a plan about how to tackle that issue, and one that suited his design aesthetic – which was the keep the contemporary but add a little feudal-era finery. Dark, wrought iron banisters and a circle chandelier added a touch of medieval charm to the decor; and the addition of our beams to the ceiling pulled it all together.
Ashok has an eye for interior design, and the first task on his list was to map out the ceiling space and create a beam structure that not only suited the space available, but also looked authentic. To that end, Ashok researched historic homes with genuine exposed beams and copied their structural layout.
Because of the unusual angles of the ceiling, this was a slightly more involved process than with a symmetrical cathedral ceiling.. The central apex of the roof, for example, was offset – and while Ashok ordered four sets of beams to run parallel and opposite to each other, one side ran extremely long – all the way to the ground floor – while the other just spanned the space to the opposite wall.
It all took some thought, but wasn’t beyond Ashok’s talents; especially when he recruited the help of our customer care representatives to make sure the components he ordered were right for his vision. He ordered the beams and they were shipped promptly to his front door.
Once the placement of the beams was determined, Ashok followed the standard installation guidelines, first attaching mounting blocks directly into the studwork. He then measured and trimmed each beam to fit, one-by-one, starting with the central beam.
As the beams are made from polyurethane foam, Ashok was able to trim them with a regular wood saw to fit perfectly flush. The only additional challenge he faced was actually mounting beams – which required scaffolding to reach the ceiling. While this was an additional step, it was hardly a prohibitive one as the beams are extremely lightweight.
The end result was a spanning network of decorative beams that looked like an exposed structural beam system.
We love this project. It’s clearly well-thought-out, expertly installed, and it transformed the ceiling space in an affordable way. It’s an example of our faux beams doing what they do best.