Ceiling Beam Installation

We deciding faux barn beams were the way to go for our particular situation. I hope you caught the first post where we catalogued the whole process of making and weathering our beams. In case you missed it, we joined together three boards to look like one solid beam. However, it’s hollow in order to encase the retractable movie screen. After building them, bashing them and staining them, we’re ready to install them. It’s time to get these puppies onto the ceiling!

Tools

Joe was able to do this job completely by himself with the help of this tool. The drywall lift/hoist is usually used to assist in hanging sheetrock to the ceiling. But it worked great for lifting the beams and holding them in place while Joe screwed them into the ceiling joists!

Hanging the Ceiling Beams

Here’s the idea: Create the look of two seamless beams flanking the room. In total, there are 6 segments; 3 on each side of the ceiling. You can see from this angle how we decided to hang them.

Joe left one side of the beam open so he was able to screw the “bottom” of it into the ceiling joist. It worked well because the screws aren’t showing anywhere. He was then able to go back and attach the final board to finish each beam.

Before I get any deeper, here’s a video of Joe lifting a beam!

Piece by piece, it came together. You can see here how we’re doing two parallel beams, like railroad tracks, across the length of the ceiling. Remember to measure as you go 🙂

Eventually he got to this special little piece on the other side. We had prebuilt the hinged lid at this segment because this is where the movie screen is hiding!

You can see the little string hanging down.

Give the string a pull and ta-dah!

Fun little party trick, eh?

That part was easy. It’s basically like a roll of aluminum foil hanging up there.

If you’re wondering about the barn door, don’t worry. The track has about 6″ of space behind the beam.

The screen projector is mounted to the back of the beam on the farther side of the room.

It hovers just below the beam, so it doesn’t take up much space.

Whew, everyone’s tired after all that work!

Movie time 😀

Next Up

We’re still working on some way to conceal the spots where one segment ends and the next begins. Brainstorming different materials we can use to make it look like they’re one continuous beam. We think we can make it look like there are straps or brackets holding them up. We can also talk about where and how we ran surround sound and where we placed speakers. And field any other questions. We’ll keep you posted and hopefully have some good before and after photos for next time!

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