Beamed ceiling, adding light, help needed!
I have a ranch-style home, built in 1978. The family room is 14 x 18 and the ceiling is like the inside of a milk carton, with wood beams at each change of plane:
The highest part, the short section connecting the two "Vees" is at 11 ft high. The tops of the walls are at 8.5 ft., so though they may look flat in the photo, the "Vees" do climb from the corners of the room to the center short beam.
There is no light in this house. No room has so much as a ceiling fixture, though the halls do. I laugh when I see the posts about people needing to have their lighting plan done by Friday! The builder of this home's lighting plan was that a switch by the door operates a wall plug somewhere in the room. In this Family Room, the wall switch operates the TV and cable system. Oops.
Originally, I wanted to add a ceiling fan with a light kit to the center of the short flat beam. I figured that the parts that make up the beam would come apart, the fan would be hung somehow, then a hole would have to be made in the face piece of wood to allow the fan's shaft to pass through, and the electrical would have to be surface-mounted inside the beam going to the corner of the room, where it would enter the wall. There it could hook up with the switch that should not be controlling the TV, and it could take over that switch box. The TV and such might get its own, new circuit.
I ran into two problems. I could never find a fan with a light kit that gave enough light to brightly light the room without those awful 1970s-style tulip light-bulbs-pointed-to-blind-your-eyes fixtures, and then there was the slanted ceiling. I can't really get up there to measure how far from the ceiling or beams a ceiling fan's blades would be any given distance out. Given that the ceiling is only 11 ft, that the beams are about 7" or 8" deep, then the tips of the ceiling fan blades would have to be x" down from them as they make their sloping descent toward the 8.5 ft corners of the room. See? Complicated.
We used to have an antique floor lamp in this room with a 300 watt mogul base up light and three 60 watt bulbs in the shade area. DH got fed up with it and banished it. We now each have task lighting at our chairs and there is one other table lamp. The adjoining kitchen was remodeled five years ago and has four Cree 6"LED cans and four 4" LED cans and one of the 4" is on the boundary between the two rooms and we do get a lot of light from the kitchen when the lights are all on. The Family Room definitely needs its own lighting, though. We are now in our late 50s and need more light than ever to see well.
Our roof is just above the ceiling in the Family Room. When we insulated, our contractor could not get "in there" to add any insulation. In addition, when we had the roof replaced, a lot of the "nail pops" in the ceiling drywall lost their drywall mud and the whole ceiling needs repairs and repainting due to that. So I know there is no getting up above this ceiling to install anything. That is the reason that I am guessing that a fan or a chandelier has to be installed in (or even ON) the ceiling behind the faux beam, then the "cover" piece of the faux beam has to be cut to allow the rod or chain to pass through. Is this going to look ridiculous? It seems passable to me for the rod of a ceiling fan. But what if I want to put in a chandelier? http://www.build.com/livex-lighting-8678-chandelier/s920436?uid=2307384
That round 5" bronze canopy it hangs from has to be at the ceiling. No faux beam is going to hold up that light. What is it going to look like with a chain coming through a hole in the faux beam? This thing puts out a lot of light and will brightly light the room. I can use LED bulbs in it, too.
I just now found this possibility, I don't know if this particular fan would give off enough light with the heavily tinted shades, but the idea of hiding a fan in the housing of a lighting fixture is interesting and gets rid of my problem with the slanting ceiling. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DSU5H9S/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=105DYTR9DCPLU&coliid=IJO7BY3SWH2QV&psc=1
1. So how would I have a handyman mount a ceiling fixture in this situation? What if we can't get above the drywall, can we mount on the drywall in the faux beam?
2. Is it legal to put the wiring inside the beam, perhaps in a track to get it to the wall, where we can fish it to the switch?
3. Would you simply drill a hole in the face board of the beam and put the lighting's rod through, or would you line that hole with a rubber gasket (if I could find one)? Or try to find a dummy canopy to put there so it looks like the light/fan is hanging from it? Oftentimes, the canopy does hold the fan, and is not just decorative, right? So the real one will be inside the beam, doing its work. Hence the need for a "dummy" one if I want one that can be seen outside, hanging from the faux beam.
Is there anything that I am missing as I think about adding a ceiling fixture - ceiling fan or chandelier - to this room?
Comments (6)
Nancy in Mich
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Adding molding to ceiling beam - how to offset curve?
Comments (11)There is an easy way. It's very simple, although it may sound complicated at first. I'll give you an example using some assumed measurements for your situation, and you can adjust to what you actually have. You will need a facing board whose width is just a little more than the greatest distance between the bottom of the beam and the ceiling, at whatever point that occurs. Let's say that the distance from the bottom of the beam to the ceiling is 6" at its greatest point (presumably one of the ends). Mark a distance on your board of, say, 6-1/4" from its bottom edge (so that, when you are done cutting, the facing board will give you some wiggle room by hanging down about 1/4" below the bottom of the beam). Then put the board in place so it butts up against the low center point, plumb it horizontal with your level, and fix it in place (2 nails?). Then, get out a drafting compass (you know, those things you use to draw circles on paper). Set the distance between the points of the compass to the distance between the ceiling and the pencil mark you made. In the next step, make sure that the distance you set the compass points to doesn't change as you are working with it. Then, simply run the compass point along the ceiling and the pencil point along the board, from one end to the other. The pencil will mark a line on the board that exactly conforms to any deviations in the ceiling. Take the board down, cut along the marked line with a saber saw, and you're ready to put it in place. If you've been able to follow my instructions, you will have a board that conforms to the irregular ceiling and hangs down about 1/4" lower than the beam at all points. Do the same thing for the other side of the beam. Then nail a third piece across the bottom and it's a wrap! If you have any slight gaps when you're done at the ceiling line, you can put a small piece of trim in place that will hide them. Hope that's clear. The link below (illustration 5) shows how to use a compass to scribe an irregular surface in a different application, but, hopefully, this may help your understanding of the technique. Let me know if you need anything clarified. Here is a link that might be useful: Scribing with a compass...See MorePainting ceiling beams... need color help
Comments (0)My living room has tall slanted ceilings with beams. Being that this is a mobile home, the beams are "fake", and are not real wood, just paper finish glued onto thin boards. If they were real I'd leave them alone. I'm fixing the walls to make them more like real walls. I removed the firring strips and taped the seams, then I textured the walls. The color scheme is going to be either Olympic Vanilla Tan or SW Champagne for the walls, and Valspar Terra Cotta Clay or SW Canyon Clay for the fireplace wall. The trim will be some kind of white but I'm not sure exactly what shade of white. I don't know what to do about the beams. Should they match the color of the ceiling, the trim, or the walls?...See Moreceiling fan for kitchen and lights attached to or in ceiling beam
Comments (6)I have a fan in my kitchen and while I find it a distinct relief in hot weather, I can't have it on while canning or any cooking that requires consistent, steady temperature control, as the fan tends to blow the flame around. That's fine - I turn the fan down or off for a while. It hasn't killed me yet, so it isn't that big a deal. My house is a Craftsman and I looked high and low for an appropriate-style ceiling fan that wasn't scary-expensive. Apparently I was hunting Unicorns. I settled for a basic simple fan style that at least doesn't look all wrong, even if it wasn't what I'd envisioned. It was cheap, and can be easily upgraded down the road. Not much help, I know - I have box beams all over my main floor (although not in the kitchen) but the light fixtures are not in the beams. Here is a link that might be useful: My Amost Mostly Finished Budget Craftsman Kitchen...See MoreHelp lighting a kitchen around a weird beam in the ceiling
Comments (34)Thanks for the help and suggestions with the photos. The beam will be just as low as it it now. It would just be about a third narrower. I got it about the recessed lights over the island, but I was wondering if there is any way to make this more decorative too? Also, would that be enough to light the whole kitchen (except the eating area)? Any advice on how many lights or how strong they should be? The kitchen will have a reddish brown hardwood and white cabinets. Mostly existing appliances. Also, we just put LED recessed lights in another room and they just don't dim enough. Any thoughts on lights that actually dim? Stick with incandescents or try something else? Thank you!!...See MoreNancy in Mich
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoNancy in Mich
8 years ago
David