Opinions wanted on box beams in great room

10 years ago

We're building a new home and considering installing box beams over the great room. The beams would be around 5-6" deep (and about the same width). The resulting coffers will be crowned all around. If we decide not to add these, we'll just crown the perimeter of the room. The ceilings are 9' high. We'll mount a semi-flush fixture in the center of the central coffer and can lights in the center of the others.

There's an adjacent kitchen/nook area that will be crowned around the perimeter but won't have any beams. There's an actual structural beam separating the great room from the nook/kitchen area.

We think the room will look good with or without the beams, so we're looking for helpful opinions to push us one way or the other. On the pro side, the room is fairly large and we think the beams will help to partition/break it up a bit. Also we just think they will look pretty cool. On the con side, we usually see beams like these in more formal rooms, and we're worried how the smooth mill work will look next to the textured ceiling (which has a brocade finish).

Any thoughts appreciated.

- Jay

Comments (6)

bridget helm
10 years ago
i think that i would leave them out since your ceilings are only 9 feet and have texture. the beamsmight close you in. just my opinion
Annie Deighnaugh
10 years ago
From the pictures the proportion of the room is that it already looks like the ceiling is low....adding the beams will make it lower. I'd suggest not doing it.

We coffered the ceiling in our hallway, but that worked as it was high for the size and shape of the space, so bringing the ceiling down brought the area more into proportion.
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GreenDesigns
10 years ago
Too obviously faux and out of scale and spirit with the rest of the space.
majornewbie
Original Author
10 years ago
I think the pictures make the ceiling look a bit lower than it actually is, but I appreciate the feedback.
Apolonia3
10 years ago
Perhaps crown molding will give the room a nice finished look.
jackson2348
10 years ago
I have no idea if this is architecturally correct, but we like how it looks. 10' ceilings, each box drops 12".

This is how we transitioned to the plain kitchen ceiling. The crown on the kitchen side runs all the way through the kitchen.

Edited to add: I think coffers almost always look great. They are one of my favorite things in our house, and I'll be copying them in our new house as well. I think 6" with a 9' ceiling would look proportional.

This post was edited by jackson2348 on Sat, Jul 20, 13 at 17:44