Foam to Faux Ceiling Beams: DIY

They look great. The next homeowner is going to have quite the surprise when he/she tries to hang a lamp or something on those beautiful beams. LOL

I pretend to be a wood worker. I made a faux beam out of wood to use as a mantle for fireplace. I too did not want the look of a box made with butt joints, so I miter cut the pieces. The project turned out pretty good, but it was really a challenge. I don’t ever want to do that again. On a fun note, I turned the mantle into a time capsule. Inside it I put a current newspaper, I few dollars and coins, small toys and trinkets. When the next person comes along, and decides the ly do not like my mantle, they will find what I left behind and will smile hopefully. I also wrote a little letter to whoever finds it in the future. Your project looked great and was very well done. Great idea and execution!

I am a finish carpenter and I can tell you , you did an amazing job!!

Wow I'd never in a million years know this was not wood beams. These look fantastic!

I have a 10x16 shed that I wanted a wood tongue and groove ceiling in, but I didn’t want the weight. I used foam sheets as well. I cut them down into 7 inch strips on table saw. Then I used a tongue and groove but on my router table and made all the boards tongue and groove including on the ends. Then I also chamfered the edges.Then I used a wire brush to create the grain and knots the same way you did. I painted them all with gloss white paint. Then I used a grey glaze and spread over them. The grey settled down into the texture. I then used construction adhesive to glue them to the ceiling as I put the pieces together. The nice thing about having t and g in the ends is everything lies flat in the same plane. The ceiling is very convincing and no one knows it’s foam unless I tell them!

I was skeptical at first, but I'm not gonna lie. Those do look pretty legit!

This is a great idea for people like me that don't know anything about wood working. Good job on being so creative.

As a Wood worker & framing carpenter who built houses, pretty good job! I'm thinking about doing some beams in my new house in the basement once it gets built. A few suggestions though. Stagger the seams so they all won't be at the same place. You could also use a wire paint stripper to give it a rougher look. The type that has the metal roto stripper (think coat hangers). Make some bigger gouges in some spots. A heat gun might make the surface a little rougher too before you scrap it. Something sort of a crust like, but keep heat gun far away to prevent melting it.

I just did this last October to use as Halloween props. I used a wire brush for smaller grain and the back end of skinny paint brushes of different sizes for deeper grain texture and make it look a bit more aged. I used a knife to shave off circular pieces to imitate knots in the wood. I then painted it with several shades of brown and used a watered down black paint to fill in the grain and add some depth. I then coated it with matte mod podge to seal it. When it was done I used Velcro strips to stick them up on my windows. I hung a few boards over each window to make make house look like an old abandoned house that was boarded up. We even had a couple over the front door and handed out the candy between the boards. It’s a time consuming project, especially when waiting for each shade of brown to dry when using 5 or 6 colors to really age it. Next year I might get some shades of green and grey and use a sponge to dab it on and give it a mossy effect

Just bought a house and looked into adding beams. They are very expensive right now, so I’m going to try this method Thank you for this video

If I learn just one thing from any video, I feel like my time was invested and not wasted. Your video was a great return on investment!! Just the tape on the screws trick was enough, but your detailed explanations and “tests” were awesome. I know how much time it takes to shoot, edit, and voice-over a video so I really appreciate the effort you made to produce and share that with us. Thank you!

The Pink Panther and Chipotle Burritos, are a lethal combination. Great work mate!

Great work! I thought I was the only crazy one using foam for anything but it’s intended purpose. That looks awesome!

You are pretty good at making faux beams, dude. Average dad, maybe. Expert faux painter, absolutely!

I enjoy woodworking so I would never make these. But this video is amazing … and I watched the entire thing.

This would be a great way to quiet a large room with vaulted ceilings. Big rooms can get pretty loud and sound dampening is a challenge. Thus could be really cost effective for aesthetics and function.

I was quite surprised how good it looked. Nice!

Came for the artsy yet ludicrous nature of this project, but I am now humbled by your achievement. The tape on the screws was definitely worth the time. I’d suggest that you celebrate the joints on your next beams with a barn or ship style angled joint. We did that many years ago in a condo my uncle bought. He wanted to hide the concrete seams in the dock planking pour of his building with faux beams. We couldn’t get full 14 foot long beams on the elevators. We used old tools to recreate the hand hewn look and cut 27 degree angles into the seven foot sections to accept faux wedges and bolts.

Wow! Very creative and they look fantastic! My hubby and I were going to purchase faux beams, but now we are going to diy it using your example. Thanks for sharing!

that looks so real. you nailed the wood grain