Hi,

My DW (ctlane) speaks highly of you folks who participate in this forum. A lot of talent pooled here. So here is our current situation. We are finishing our basement and there's a height/design issue that involves the ceiling height, window height and type of ceiling (beam or coffered depending on what you may call it) we want to install for the main room. See picture 1 for scratch drawing.

Room is approx 22 ft wide, 17.5 ft deep (ceiling duct to windows).

The height from the cement floor to joist is 91.5 inches.

The height from the cement floor to the currently installed strapping around duct work is 80.75 inches.

Duct work framing drops 10.75 inches.

Once the floor is installed, we lose another 0.75 inches.

All doors exiting from this room (3 of them) will be finished in drywall (no doors, jambs or trim).

The ideas started out knowing the duct had to be boxed in, so might as well run the box around the room and either tray the ceiling or do a coffered box beam look. What we discovered is the "box" above the windows nearly "cuts off"

the windows. Actually once framing and drywall is placed on the underside of the box, it leaves only about 3.5 inches to the window box (top side). That leaves little to no room for even the most basic trim molding, not to mention issues with curtains. Although DW says she will use blinds. Either way, the box chops off the windows.

Strapping in the long run of duct work is straight forward (Picture 2). It so happens that once drywall is installed, the drywall height runs the same height as the doorways (Picture 3).

In Picture 4, this is the "trouble wall". You will see just above the pine hutch is a beige colored box suspended from the ceiling with duct work coming from either end. That's a room-to-room air exchanger we installed that is hooked directly to the fireplace above (on the main level). It helps to push heat into the basement during the cold months. And that, is the only reason why we have to continue with boxing in. And my reasoning is if you have to box one side of the room, might as well box the other, or it will look unbalanced.

You will also see in Picture 4 that there is framing in place above that pine hutch. That's just clamped in place at the moment to get a feel for what it will look like. Now, a person might say, "Just box both sides and don't box above the windows." Yes, thought of that. But as you can see in Picture 4, the framing sticks out 14 inches from the side wall and it hits above the window. The window only comes off of that wall 7 inches.

So I had a couple of options:

Option A: Stop the framing just past that room-to-room air exchanger. Do a similar false box on the other side of the room (Picture 5). Then install the ceiling. But for me, having too short boxes stick out like two thumbs just doesn't seem right. Maybe the coffered ceiling would lessen the visual impact.

Option B: Go ahead with option A but continue around the room with a box frame at half the height (5 or 6 inches). The coffered ceiling beans are going to drop down about that far anyway.

DW would like to do moldings on the walls too but I'd like to get the ceiling figured out first. :)

So, what do you all think? Ideas, comments, suggestions...the floor is open. :)