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Design Dilemma Paint

what color stain would look good on this beam?

3 years ago

We are going to be wrapping this beam with Douglas fir boards. I had planned on doing a med/dark brown stain like Walnut or Provincial. But now I’m wondering if I should keep it natural. I was reading a few comments on other threads that darker ceilings will make the room shorter and visually distracting. I’m not sure if that is true but thought I would get some opinions based on the photo. NOTE - the floor is actually a tad lighter than it appears in this photo.

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Comments (3)

jenwinston73
Original Author
3 years ago
Here are examples of some stain colors I had initially thought would look nice. But I am open to a lighter/more natural color too.
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GannonCo
3 years ago
Ok, wood species and stain color are two different things. Why not warp in a wood that has the tone you want? D Fir will have a similar look of pine if not stained. If your looking for a low cost wood that takes darker stains well look at red oak and use a gel stain.

Stain colors look different on every wood. It looks good as is but thats your call.
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jenwinston73
Original Author
3 years ago
The current beam is too narrow and has to be wrapped. The fan base hangs out at least and inch on each side. As far as wrapping it with a certain type of wood, it’s hard to find 16’ boards and I didn’t want to mess with seaming together multiple boards. That said, our local options are pine, Douglas fir, and cedar. We thought the grain on Douglas fir looked nice. I mainly wanted to know if staining the wood dark would be a good compliment to light colored floor. I know some people try to match the floor but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that.

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