How-To

15 Coffered-Ceiling Ideas

Design ideas, tips, and techniques for a unique coffered ceiling in kitchens, living rooms, basements and more.

Coffered ceilings add a beautiful element to any room. Whether you’re looking for a traditional or contemporary design, we’ve put together a collection featuring some of our best reader-submitted projects and articles highlighting coffered ceilings in living rooms, kitchens, and basements. You’ll also find tips and techniques on building box beams, installing a coffered ceiling, and leveling old ceilings.

For more information, check out these links:

To see the 15 featured ideas, please click the Launch Slideshow button below.

Coffered Ceiling for All

Coffered ceiling with massive, MDF box beams.

Custom-Stained, Poplar Coffered Ceiling

This reader-submitted project features a custom-stained and poplar coffered ceiling.

Classic Coffered Ceiling

This dining room gets an elegant face-lift with a coffered ceiling.

Family Room Gets a Coffered Ceiling

For this custom coffered ceiling, the individual coffers were dry-assembled in a shop, tested for fit, delivered and installed in the home.

Coffered Ceiling in Walkout

With all of the beams, ducts, and pipes that need to be hidden, coffered ceilings can be a practical detail for a basement remodels.

Arts and Crafts Oak Kitchen with a Coffered Ceiling

A totally gutted and remodeled kitchen gets the coffered ceiling treatment.

Coffered Ceiling with a View

These beams suspended at ceiling height help to carve out a cozy space, while the skylight-filled, vaulted ceiling above makes the room bright and airy.

Framing for a Barrel-Vaulted Coffered Ceiling

This reader-submitted project is still in the works. We can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s done.

Transformed Basement with Coffered Ceiling

This contemporary basement remodel includes a unique, modern take on box-beam ceilings.

Cotemporary Kitchen with Coffered Ceiling

Here’s another unconventional take on a coffered ceiling done simply by creating concentric recesses in this kitchen’s drywall ceiling.

Tips for a Coffered Ceiling

In this article, senior editor Charles Bickfod shares 5 tips for installing a coffered ceiling.

Perfecting Coffered Ceilings

Learn how to build and fasten faux beams with U-shaped ceiling supports instead of the traditional elaborate grid of framing.

How to Level an Old Ceiling

More often than not, old ceilings feature studs and joists that have sagged, twisted, and bowed making it to prepare it for coffered ceiling installations. This article details a simple technique for solving the problem with steel studs.

A Coffered Ceiling Begins With Box Beams

In this online-member article, builder Joseph Lanza shares some advice and tips on how to build box beams that can be used as the basis for coffered ceilings.