Finally. I can finally say we are done with this back-breaking and tedious job. It sucked, but it is so worth it. Our exposed beam ceiling has been completely finished! Do a little dance for me. Wrapping this up gets us one step closer to finishing our family room.
Let me remind you with what we started with. Old orangey stained beams, dropped ceiling tiles with a shoddy electrical throughout, and no insulation. This family room was seriously cringe worthy, but I knew it just needed (and still needs) major elbow grease to make it a dream space. We tore down the mess of a ceiling and fans within a week of closing and did some initial work to clean up the ceiling right away.
The real back-breaking work included insulating and putting up drywall on the whole ceiling to leave the beams exposed. This is an old house. Nothing is even. That meant each area had to be measured and cut to size one by one. Fun. Add re-staining the beams a darker color to match our floors, spackling and painting the dry wall. And if that wasn’t enough, we had to add a white trim to cover the gaps between the beam and the drywall. Never ending project.
But it is finally done. And what a magnificent difference it makes in the space. The beams match the flooring throughout the house, the crisp white of the ceiling and the walls makes the space probably my favorite in the house.
Seriously, when I look at the before pictures I now understand why my mother-in-law cried when we bought the house. Ray and I knew it had good bones and would be our perfect space but it has taken us some time to get there.
So what do you think of the exposed beam ceiling? We had some people tell us we should have just covered it up and saved ourself the work. That was never an option for us so I’m glad we are finally done!
WOW! insanely gorgeous. that is all.
Thank you, my friend!
Beautiful! Your hard work was so worth it!
Thanks! 🙂
Wow, it looks amazing! We are trying to keep the original features in our house, I think it is worth the extra effort!
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Thank you!! 🙂
It is beautiful! I love it and it was totally worth the work!
Thank you! I’m so glad it is over.
was just wondering if the insulation helps? I’m thinking of installing insulation in between my exposed beam as well
Hi Caro, it did make a big difference. The room is cooler now during the summer months and it also helped with the sound too. I’m happy we did it.
Dear, your house is so much like mine it isn’t even funny! Good bones. Bad decisions. Mine was cut in half and the second floor roof removed so it could be moved 32 miles in 1999.
We put a 14.5′ beam across the living room where it was cut and I stole porch flooring to repair where they cut the floor. We added a second floor joist to each ceiling joist in the exposed ceiling and two where a fire had weakened the joist. Then we added a load bearing wall between the living room and the bedroom.
First, I hate drywall because I live in a hurricane prone area. This house survived a direct hit from Betsy and Katrina before being moved AND Katrina after. Yep, good bones. If I had installed drywall between the joists, yesterday’s sink overflow would have destroyed all my work. I’m 67 and too darn old to do it again!!
The thing is the upstairs subfloor is double V tongue and groove! I want it to shine as my ceiling. I want to paint the ceiling and the joists a light tan.Then stain the beam dark to match the moulding. Should I hire someone to install linoleum in the upstairs bath and bedrooms? Paint with Flexseal first?