Ceiling beams are a structural part of most country houses, both wooden and brick. In typical city apartments, it is customary to disguise them by covering them with finishing, shingles, plaster, whitewash, stucco, concrete floors or plasterboard slabs.
Exposed ceiling beams in apartment buildings are a rarity today. If the owners of country cottages can initially plan the interior of living rooms with ceiling beams, then city dwellers can only rely on decorative materials. But false beams are not always appropriate in urban housing, because this element is associated with spacious rooms and high ceilings. However, with the proper skill and taste, it will not be difficult to fit decorative beams into the interior of a small house or apartment.
Purposes and benefits of using ceiling beams
Decorative ceiling beams can give a home a unique flavor and emphasize style, be it an apartment or a private house. However, in addition to decorative functions, this element successfully copes with practical tasks. In particular, decorative beams on the ceiling perform the following functions:
- visual expansion of space, changing the geometry of the room;
- zoning of large halls, studios, living rooms;
- focusing on the ceiling as an architectural element and part of the interior;
- fasteners for built-in and pendant lamps;
- masking electrical wiring, communications, irregularities, joints of ceiling elements.
Any load-bearing and decorative beams (with the exception of plasterboard elements), firmly and reliably mounted, can be used to fasten a variety of parts and objects. So, in the kitchen, beams are used to store utensils hanging on hooks. For rural interior styles, it is also common to hang dried herbs, garlic, and onions in bundles in the kitchen. You can hang the hood on strong beams if the kitchen has an island layout.
Hollow products are suitable for laying cable channels; on such beams you can mount not only built-in and pendant lamps, but also plasma TVs on brackets. Strong ceiling beams can support the weight of large and small suspended structures, including a swing sofa, a cocoon chair (as in the photo below), a hammock, a cradle, and a canopy over the bed.
How much will a ceiling with imitation beams cost?
Looking at a photo of ceilings with beams in a wooden house, it is impossible to say exactly what material the element is made of. Such structures can be made of wood or artificial materials - foam and polyurethane. To prevent wooden beams from being too heavy, they are made hollow inside.
The cost of a false beam is directly related to the material used. Wooden ceiling beams will cost the most - $35-45 (2275-2925 rubles) per linear meter. Inexpensive imitation of such structures is made from artificial materials. Thus, foam elements will cost only $3/m.p. (195 rubles).
If you entrust the installation to specialists, then to the cost of the material you need to add the cost of paying hired workers. The exact price depends on the installation method. If lightweight structures can simply be glued to the ceiling, then wooden elements need to be attached to hardware. In this regard, the price for installing decorative beams on the ceiling is approximately $1-3 (195 rubles) for installing one element.
Materials for the manufacture of decorative beams
Today, beams on the ceiling are not a rough finishing option, but a highlight of the interior, a fashionable accent of a room in the style of a chalet, Provence, modern and even high-tech. If you want to decorate your home with a decorative structure made of beams, you have a large selection of ready-made elements of all colors and textures at your disposal from:
- wood, MDF, chipboard;
- metal;
- polyurethane and plasterboard;
- fiberglass.
Structures made of plasterboard and polyurethane perform exclusively decorative functions. They are practically weightless, easy to install, and the abundance of decorative coatings allows you to choose any color to match the desired type of wood, different textures, imitation of stone, metal, aged and rough materials. Beams made of MDF or chipboard are decorated with colored film or natural veneer with a wide color palette; they are strong enough to withstand pendants, chandeliers, and other lamps.
Wooden beams are ideal for houses with ceilings made of natural wood, for log houses, eco-inspired interiors, rustic, chalets. Their main drawback is the difficulty of selecting the desired color according to the type of wood. Wooden beams made of teak, ash, beech, oak, pine, larch, coniferous species, resistant to moisture, treated with special compounds are durable and practical. Ceilings in luxurious interiors are often decorated with beams made of valuable and rare wood.
Fiberglass and metal are an excellent choice for decorating modern interiors in loft and hi-tech style.
What styles are ceiling beams suitable for?
Beams can decorate the ceiling in an interior in almost any style: from historical classics to ultra-modern high-tech. Well, if we are talking about interiors in ethnic styles, then beams are exactly what the designer ordered.
If this is a classic with a claim to luxury, the beams can be decorated with paintings, vignettes, and carvings. Painting it in a delicate color or even silver is also suitable.
Smooth lacquered beams - dark or white - look great in strict classic interiors.
Smooth white, dark and gray beams are also suitable for modern interiors. Here this element looks no less impressive. The difference is that creativity and bold decisions are acceptable in a modern interior. For example, beams can be painted not only white, dark brown or black, but also in a bright color - for example, make them red, blue or even pink.
In loft and high-tech interiors, beams can be metal or painted with metallic effect paint. By the way, in modern interiors, beams on the ceiling are often adjacent to brickwork on the walls. This is an “industrial aesthetic”, an appeal to the theme of old abandoned factories and warehouses turned into modern luxury apartments.
Elements of this style (“loft”) can be repeated in an ordinary small apartment. A few beams, some exposed brick, some glass and metal, a few bare light bulbs and exposed wires - and you can enjoy the loft atmosphere.
For a rustic-style interior, of course, it is better to choose beams that imitate aged wood. Moreover, the beams here can be either light or very dark. They are distinguished by their roughness and texture. The color of the beams can be very contrasting to the entire interior and not be combined with anything.
Beams in rustic interiors
If we are talking about the French rural style (Provence), then the beams here are often quite neat and “elegant”. Preference is given to light, bleached beams.
Features of choosing ceiling beams
It is believed that beams in a small room or on a low ceiling are nonsense, but this is not entirely true. Designers successfully use beams of contrasting dark color to visually expand the space. They seem to lift the white ceiling. If the ceiling has a round or dome shape, then painting it blue or stretching the ceiling in an azure shade above the beams will create the effect of an open-air room. By installing contrasting beams along the long walls of the room, you will visually shorten their length; beams just below the ceiling will raise it, and those located slightly lower will lower it.
If we are talking about an attic room, a large spacious hall with a gable or multi-slope roof, beams can be used to create an architectural structure of stunning beauty. A specialist who is accustomed to working with wood will transform simple wooden elements into lace arcs, arches, fairytale castles, and large chandeliers to match will become a worthy decoration of this miracle.
The easiest way to decorate beams in a small room is to whitewash them or paint them the same tone as the ceiling. In houses and rooms decorated with wood, clapboards, and log cabins, the beams on the ceiling should be wooden, the same tone as the other trim. Classic interiors are characterized by a combination of decorative beams with furniture and furnishings: they must be identical in color, texture and grade.
Ceiling with beams in different interior styles
In both large and small rooms decorated with beams, the fundamental factor in their use is not the size, but the style of the interior. You can create a harmonious space by adhering to a general idea and using certain techniques characteristic of a particular type of design.
Beams in a classic interior
Simple wooden beams of expensive types of wood against a light ceiling will perfectly highlight a bedroom, kitchen or living room in a classic and neoclassical style. This type of design is alien to pomp, so the wood of the beams balances and adds severity to the room with carved wooden furniture, parquet flooring of a similar shade, and even with wallpaper with gold embossing in a soft tone, as in the photo.
Provence and Mediterranean style
The Provence style, like Mediterranean interior design, gravitates towards simple and uncomplicated materials, textures, and natural shades. In the atmosphere of an Italian or French province, bleached or light-colored wooden beams coexist perfectly with the same bleached walls, brass, copper and earthenware, and terracotta floors made of tiles with imitation stone, as in the example in the photo. Provence is distinguished by bleached, faded colors; even metal and cast iron chandeliers, forged elements of beds, tables and chairs are painted white here. The Mediterranean style has absorbed more of the rich colors of the sea, herbs, earth, and fruits, but both of these areas are rustic, and natural wood is more than appropriate here.
Decorating the ceiling with beams in Victorian interiors
The style of good old England, its Victorian era, as well as its colonial variety, involves total wood cladding of all surfaces. On the floor there is stacked parquet, furniture made of precious wood, the walls are often lined with wooden panels, and this hymn to a bygone era is complemented by large leather armchairs and sofas with Capitonné stitch. On the ceiling, also finished in mahogany, squares of decorative beams look organic.
Ceiling beams in Art Nouveau interiors
Art Nouveau style is prone to artistic excess. In this option, dark wooden beams of an elegant design will go well with equally exquisite wrought iron chandeliers, staircases with lace railings, hand-painted walls and a fireplace lined with light marble tiles.
Chalet and country: naturalness and deliberate rudeness
The chalet style originated in Switzerland, the country style - in the American outback, but they have a lot in common, including a love for natural finishing materials, good-quality, solid and bulky furniture. A mandatory element of a living room in a chalet or country style is a fireplace lined with natural rough stone, a large oak table with benches or chairs, forged pendant lamps and decorative beams, dark and rough to the touch, against the backdrop of a bleached ceiling. In a country interior, decorative beams can be the same tone as the wooden ceiling and walls; they go well with stone and wooden plank floors, and natural stone wall cladding.
Interior design in a marine style
Marine style is a rather vague concept; it is largely determined by decorative elements and colors, but the materials used for decoration also play an important role. Thus, to decorate a living room, nursery or bedroom in a marine style, natural materials are usually used: paint, plaster, wallpaper, wooden elements, pebbles, shells. Textiles and wallpaper are dominated by blue, whitish, turquoise, blue tones; there are decorative elements made of ropes, jute, imitating ship ropes and nets. Rough wooden beams on the ceiling, as if eaten away by a bug, will enhance the effect; in addition, you can place stylish hanging lanterns on them, curtains resembling sails, or hang a hammock, like on a real schooner.
