I am trying to drywall a ceiling. There is a 6 inch wide wood beam that hangs down about 1 inch below the finished surface of the drywall. I was just trying to figure out the easiest way to finish the beam. It has some ugly holes in it so I want to try to cover. Should I put drywall over the beam or could I just use drywall edges and joint compound. How would you finish the sides which are only 1 inch deep? Is it easier to just cover it with plywood and quarter round. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Brian
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Put a piece of sheetrock on the bottom of the beam, use outside corner bead for the corners and sides, and the inside corner where the beam meets the ceiling. Should finish nicely.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
I don't know if its too late, but have you considered firring the entire ceiling down so you bury the beam behind the sheetrock?
I would rip some strips of 1/2" MDF and laminate the sides of the beam so that the MDF is 1/4" or less below the beam. Just drag a 10" knife along the the MDF and fill the gap.
Make sure the strips are parallel, or one corner could end up looking goofy. The advantage of corner bead is that it forms a sharp point the knife can ride on, as opposed to a wide surface that could be crooked. To make it fool-proof, you could cut your strips so one edge is bevelled, leaving a sharp corner.
To me, that'd seem easiest, but to each their own.
Edited 11/12/2007 10:04 pm ET by Biff_Loman
MDF? Make sure it's the water resistant kind.
In my experience, the edges don't swell *that much* from from the moisture in drywall mud. Maybe a tiny little bit. Corner bead creates a little flare anyway!Our cabinet installer always builds his bulkheads using MDF, and just muds the joints. They turn out looking perfect.
Well....there ya go. Larn sump'n new every day I spose.
I don't see the advantage to using MDF instead of drywall. It's much easier to rip a piece of drywall than MDF. Plus, I would think that you would still want to tape the outside corner (or use corner bead) either way. Otherwise, you may get a hairline crack where the 2 dissimilar materials meet.
To the OP: consider this a design "opportunity". Like maybe increasing the beam to a depth of 2 or 3 inches and adding additional false beams to balance it out.
man, thats some bad advice. sounds like "crack city" in the long run
Yeah. . .
Several posters have suggested using compound directly over the wood. That may have worked for them, but it has never worked for me in the past. IME, the job will look good for a while, but sooner or later, the larger expansion/contraction of the wood will create cracks in the compound. Don't see what the big deal is to wrap the beam in DW. Do the 1" sides before butting the ceiling sheets up against them, and use corner bead/tape on the corners.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Brian, is that 1" of ceiling height critical?
If not, I would fir the joists down and sheetrock right over the beam.
A single 1" deep beam running across the ceiling is going to look odd no matter how well you disguise it.
If time and money aren't too great a concern, you could use it to your advantage and enlarge and accentuate it. Box it out it a nice finish wood. Maybe even add a few more faux beams to the ceiling. Quite often with remodeling, what starts off as a problem leads to a highlight and/or focal point in a room.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
I agree with JDRHI, the 1inch will look stupid and out of place, beef it up, dress it up and make it look like what it's supossed to or bury it.
That I imagine, depends where along the ceiling the beam go too.
Thanks for all the advice. No the inch of height isn't critical but I don't want to lose it. The other problem is I have already hung all the drywall on the ceiling. I guess I was worried about finishing the outer and inner corner with only an inch and a half of space between them. But I guess I will give that a try first. I can always make it a faux beam later. Thanks again
You may find it easier to use joint tape than corner bead. Corner bead flares out at the corner and needs a lot more than 1" to create a nice looking 90. Another reason for not using corner bead is that you don't really need to protect the outside corner since it's on a ceiling.
Specifically, I would use Straight Flex (I like the medium better than the original). It's basically very rigid joint tape and will help to create a nice crisp outside corner.