Sharing 3 reasons we decided to take down our faux beam & faux wood ceiling in our farmhouse kitchen & what we replaced it with… DIY & before and after pictures included!
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3 Reasons for Taking Down Our Faux Beam & Faux Wood Ceiling
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While it seems like people are adding faux beams to their ceilings of their homes… today, I am sharing why we decided to take down the faux wood beam & faux wood ceiling in our farmhouse kitchen & replaced it with a bead board ceiling instead.
Kitchen Before with Faux Wood Beams & Faux Wood Ceiling
Over the years, I received many compliments about the faux beams & faux wood ceiling in our kitchen.
So MANY people thought that the faux beams in our farmhouse were original.
Why we Took Down our Faux Beam & Wood Ceiling
They were really neat and gave character to our kitchen farmhouse but I always knew I wanted to take them down and here’s why…
Reason One – Faux Beams & Faux Wood Ceilings are Hard to Clean
Our faux beams & faux wood ceiling were so dark, bulky and hard to clean (the rough texture really collected dust) and they took away from precious head space.
Reason Two – Faux Beams & Wood Ceilings are Dark
One of the main things we wanted to accomplish in our kitchen renovation was to brighten it up.
The faux wood ceiling and faux beams really made our kitchen look dark.
We really wanted to have a bright & airy kitchen after our remodel & the faux beams & faux wood was not helping to accomplish that!
In my opinion, there was just too much wood… wood floors, wood kitchen cabinets and a wood ceiling was just TOO MUCH!
Reason 3 – Faux Beams Take Away from Precious Head Space
Originally, there were 3 faux beams in our kitchen.
The center beam ran right through where we wanted to add our wood range hood.
When we opened up the center one we found it to be completely empty!
EMPTY!
The faux beams were approximately 14 inches by 14 inches wide and tall.
Because our ceilings are definitely not the tallest ones in the world we decided to take down these faux beams as well as raise up our ceilings to be as high as possible.
The other 2 beams were covering the ceiling headers so we took down the faux beam wood and covered the header with lots of beautiful white trim making sure to keep as much head space as we possibly could.
The faux wood panels in our previous farmhouse kitchen were starting to fall down and just did not look good anymore.
Taking down the faux wood panels in our eat in kitchen area was pretty easy since there was drywall underneath but when we started to take down the panels down over the main part of our kitchen the original plaster ceiling came down and it was a MESS!
We even talked about leaving the rafters open and exposing the wood floors underneath but decided against it because we wanted a cleaner look and it would have taken FOREVER to paint the ceiling white.
Adding a DIY White Bead Board Kitchen Ceiling
We added bead board panels to the ceiling instead of drywall because we were so happy with how the bead board turned out in the boys bedrooms (see that DIY here) and their bathroom.
After covering the exposed nails and screws, we are still painting AND chalking the ceiling but boy does it look bright now!!!
Painting Recessed Lights in the Kitchen Ceiling
Lastly, I painted the recessed lights white to match the rest of the ceiling (see how to my tips for how to paint recessed lights here).
Farmhouse Kitchen Ceiling Reveal with White Bead Board
And… Our Farmhouse Kitchen is DONE! Full Kitchen Reveal (HERE)
We CAN NOT believe the difference in our newly remodeled farmhouse kitchen looks now & could not be happier we decided to take down the faux wood beams & faux wood ceiling.
I hope this answers all your questions about faux wood beams, faux wood ceilings, and bead board ceilings and inspires you to take down a faux beam ceiling or put one up!
by Tara Lehman
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Wow, what a difference. I love how you added trim to the beam and the all white looks amazing. The ceiling looks so much taller.
Thank you Marty! I was definitely nervous about taking the beams down but I am so happy that we did!!!
Beautiful
Thank you Cassie!
I am anxious to tackle popcorn ceilings in our small living room. They are 50 years old…..and just so drab and awful. Low ceilings don’t help the situation. I browsed the boy’s bedroom ceiling re-do, and then the kitchen Did you use individual boards for the kitchen as well, or beadboard panels? Also….curious about your white paint. Color? finish/sheen? Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for stopping by to check out so many posts about the ceilings in our farmhouse Ginger! We used bead board panels for our farmhouse kitchen ceiling since parts of our kitchen have a fairly low ceiling height. For the paint I used un-tinted flat white emerald paint from Sherwin Williams.
I am also wanting to take down faux beam I have in my bedroom. Any pointers on how to remove them? They look similar to yours but the boards mights be a bit thicker?
Good luck and be safe taking down your faux beam Jean! Without seeing your beam my pointer would be to have 1 person with the hammer and crow bar taking the beam apart with another one or two people on the opposite side of the beam holding it up so it doesn’t fall to the floor. I would also lay a tarp down to protect your floors and make clean up a little easier.
I can totally relate to why you wanted the change! We tore down an old house and saved the wood to use in our remodel, so we have wood on the floors, walls and ceilings in almost every room of the house and it’s sooo dark. We’re in the process of building and when I say everything in this new build will be white, I mean to find the brightest white I can! We’ll have wood floors, but they’ll be light and everything else will be white sheet rock. I am so tired of looking at dark wood and people that don’t live with it don’t understand why I would want to get rid of all that pretty wood! Yes, it’s gorgeous, but it will literally take you into a depression. Your new kitchen is gorgeous and I hope you enjoy every second of the brightness!
Thank you so much Kristy and I completely agree with you about too much wood making it dark!!!
How far apart did you put the solid boards?
I am not entirely sure which boards you are asking about but we covered the space between the sheets of bead board with strips of wood screwed and finish nailed into the ceiling beams.
Nice, but personally I would paint the recessed light cans a bright color to “pop” against the white – perhaps red? orange? light green? or maybe each can a different bright color – ?