By staining these false beams and faux wood corbels, they perfectly match this kitchen’s wooden island.

Wood is an amazing material – and wooden furniture and fittings add richness and warmth to any home. That’s one of the reasons our faux wood beams are so popular; as they give homeowners the opportunity to add the look of real wood to their home without the expense and difficulty of using authentic wood and timber.

But if your home already has wooden features in it, adding faux wood beams might present a challenge – because while they’re available finished in a variety of real-wood colors, those options might not exactly match the existing woodwork. If that’s the case, a good move might be to order our faux wood products unfinished and stain them yourself to perfectly mimic the hue of the real wood in your home.

Staining faux beams is straightforward. Most of our products are available pre-primed, ready for the addition of a regular wood stain. Our sandblasted and timber beams come unprimed; but can easy be prepped for staining with an all-purpose primer like Benjamin Moore “Fresh Start” 100% acrylic all-purpose primer. We recommend a tan or peanut color for the best wood-look.

Once primed and prepped, you’re ready to stain. The best product to use is a water-based, semi-transparent acrylic deck stain like  Sherwin Williams “DeckScapes” or Benjamin Moore semi-transparent deck stain “Arborcoat”. Water-based products produce a nicer finish, and are much easier to clean up than traditional oil-based stains.

Choose a color that best matches your existing wood. You can control the richness of the stain by varying the amount you apply. For darker wood, use more – for lighter wood, use a wet rag or cloth to wipe off excess stain immediately after application. It’s not an exact science – which is why we recommend practicing on a spare section of faux wood beam prior to staining your actual product (if you don’t have any spare beam material, you can ask for a sample piece when ordering.)

For more details about staining and finishing your faux wood products, check out our page on the subject here: Painting, Staining and Touch-Ups.

Using this technique, you have complete control over the color of your beam prior to installing it – and using that, you can use faux wood to perfectly match existing wooden features and create a totally seamless wood-look to any room in your home.

The post Staining Faux Wood Beams to Match Existing Wood appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

Here are a couple we’re eager to share with you.

Stain Your Beams To Match Your Wood

Our synthetic wood beams are available pre-finished in a variety of vividly realistic wood colors – but sometimes that’s not enough.

Staining these Sandblasted Faux Wood Beams meant they perfectly matched the wooden framework already installed in this beautiful room.

If you’re adding false beams to a room that already contains wood features, you’ll want the flexibility to make sure the new additions match what’s already there.

Which is why many of our faux wood products are available unfinished; leaving you able to stain them exactly the color you’d like.

Our false beams are made from tough and lightweight polyurethane foam, which perfectly mimics the look and texture of real wood – right down to knots and saw-marks.

By the time you’ve selected the correct stain, to match any existing wood in your room, they look practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

We have a full guide on how to stain your synthetic wood beams here, plus a guide to detailing and staining the knots to make them appear even more realistic.

 Install Tracked Lighting

We’ve already written about how faux wood beams make it easy and seamless to install recessed lighting – but what about other forms of illumination?

Tracked lighting is a wonderful way to add a gentle source of rich, warm light.

One neat trick to showcase a cathedral ceiling is track lighting, which installs on top of beams and shines upward, for a flattering and gentle diffusion of light.

Our faux wood beams make installing track lighting incredibly easy, because you can run the wires that power each row of lights through the hollow channel in the center of each of our u-shaped beams; something you just can’t do with real wooden beams.

When it comes to installing the tracked lighting itself, you have a variety of options. Our beams our available three-sided, like a U, which means you can install the track inside and let the lights shine out from a recessed position. Alternately, you can order our beams with a removable forth side and install the lights right on top.

You can drill holes with a regular power drill to pass the wiring through, and once they’re installed, it’s impossible to tell that they’re not solid wood beams.

If you have any tips and tricks you’ve used with our faux wood products, we’d love to hear from you!

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Before: John’s stunning brick fireplace was missing just one thing – a mantel.

John Fitzgerald’s fireplace is a thing of beauty. One of the signature features of the home he’s recently purchased, it’s made up of hand-laid bricks and is the instant centerpiece of his front room. But John knew as soon as he saw it that it was missing something.

In his email to us, which included before and after pictures, John writes:

“The installation process could not be any easier for any DIY’er. It took three simple steps:”

After: The mantel looks stunning; and even though it’s molded from durable polyurethane foam, is still totally functional as a shelf.

“First cut down your 2″x4″ to fit inside the mantel pocket. Next, figure out the height you want the shelf and attach the 2″x4″ to the face of the fireplace with some good concrete anchor screws (I recommend Tapcons). Lastly, put the mantel over the 2″x4″ and secure it from the top with some long wood screws. The whole process only takes about half an hour!”

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Rust is a problem for Martin’s ’72 Chevy, even though it’s stored indoors.

Martin from Lansdale, Pa loves the sound of an old American V8.

“They’ve been my passion since I was a teenager,” he admits. “My first car was a 1978 Pontiac Trans Am, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

But like many classic car hobbyists, Martin has a problem – “a shortage of time and money.”

That’s why his latest project car, which he bought from a barn in 2010, isn’t going to be roadworthy for quite a while.

“She’s a ’72 Chevy Malibu,” he explains, “and she was a mess when I bought her.” The literal barn-find, Martin picked her up for $500 when a friend-of-a-friend found the car in her father’s barn shortly after his death.

“I couldn’t turn it down at that price,” Martin laughs. “But I couldn’t afford to fix her up right away, either.”

A metal air vent slots directly into our hollow beams.

Since then, Martin’s spent many hours tinkering away on his ’72 Chevy, locked away in his garage. But while he has the space – it’s not ideal for a classic car.

“It’s damp,” he admits. A low water table and the way his house is positioned means the right-hand corner of the garage even gets an inch or two of flooding when its not the worst weather.

Worried that months of exposure would be promoting rust on his car, Martin came up with a smart and affordable solution – a dehumidifier and extractor. The only problem? He didn’t have any windows to vent it from.

Which is why he decided to come up with a faux wood solution.

“We’d recently used a couple of your beams in our living room,” he wrote, “and I thought adding one of those in my garage would look nicer than just a length of metal venting stuck to my ceiling.”

Using a regular drill bit, Martin cut a hole to install a vent opening.

So Martin installed his dehumidifier and ran a metal vent out of a wall-opening, and then decided to hide the whole thing inside one of our faux wood beams.

They’re actually perfect for this sort of hidden installation, as our beams are all made from hollow molded polyurethene. All Martin needed to do was purchase the correct width of beam and the vent tube slotted directly inside.

“Your customer service was great for helping me with that,” he explains. “I told them what size my piping was, and they told me how big a beam I’d need to purchase.

To complete the process, Martin drilled circular holes in the beam and installed his ceiling vent directly into it. “It was easy – all I needed to do was use a 6 and 3/8 inch drill bit and a regular power drill, and it fit right in.

Flexible metal piping allowed a seamless join even in the limited space.

The beams attached to the ceiling using wooden mounting blocks and regular screws – and once installed, the only clue that there’s a dehumidifier running is the noise of the machine itself.

“And it’s made a huge difference,” Martin admits. “Even when the floor floods, the room itself is as dry as a bone.” So much so that when it rains, his wife even hangs sheets and laundry in there to dry.”

“It’s a great addition, and thanks to the faux wood beams, totally invisible.” More importantly, as far as Martin is concerned, “it means rust won’t be ruining all the work I do on my car.”

The post Breathing New Life into Old Cars with Faux Wood Beams appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

The foyer of Brio pairs our faux wood beams with a warm and welcoming palette of colors.

Texas isn’t known for its Italian food – but restaurant chain Brio is putting an end to that. Their new location, in the hip city of Austin, is bringing a bit of Tuscany flavor to the Lone Star State.

And because of the old Italian chef’s proverb “the first bite is with the eyes,” they’re doing it in style; creating an incredible Italian-inspired interior using our Custom Woodland beams.

Molded from tough, yet lightweight polyurethane foam, our false beams are almost indistinguishable from the real timber ceiling beams you’d see in eateries in the Italian countryside. The only difference? That they were installed in just a few hours; and at the fraction of the price of using real wood.

Brio’s ceiling design was carefully planned to mirror the authentic structural roofing of centuries-old Italian buildings; the difference being that these beams would be purely decorative; rather than a load-bearing part of the building itself.

Warm, welcoming and classically Italian, the Interior boats a faux wood ceiling that is understated; yet elegant.

The interior designers used two sizes of our faux wood beams, and connected them in a grid that resembled the thicker, structural beams of an old European building, criss-crossed with the smaller beams, which supported the floorboards of the story overhead.

That was an easy look to achieve, because our beams can be cut to shape with nothing more than a regular wood saw. To achieve that style of ceiling design, we recommend installing the longer, thicker beam (the ‘structural beam’) as a single piece, from one end of the room to another, and then connecting the smaller beam sections, cutting each to size beforehand.

Just remember the golden rule – “measure twice, cut once.” Once the smaller beams are in place against the larger one, you can cover up any gaps between them with colored caulk and voila! The joint between them will be seamless.

So what do you make of Brio’s interior? Are you a fan? And what do you make of it in comparison to the other Brio location, completed using Custom Aspen Beams? They’re both very different design styles; but perfectly capture the rustic charm and easy, family-friendly appeal of a classic Italian eatery.

The post Brio in Texas Gets Faux Wood Fabulous! appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

The Levitation Illusion is one of Thaddeus’ signature magic tricks.

What is magic? Some people define it as performing the illusion of doing something impossible; seemingly unnatural feats achieved through entirely natural means.

And in many ways, that definition could be applied to our faux wood beams; which provide the illusion of real timber in places in which it would be impossible to use authentic timber beams.

But it wasn’t until we met Thaddeus – better known as illusionist and showman Ted Plezia – that the two concepts were finally combined in one.

Two lightweight, but realistic pillars “support” Ted’s floating lady.

Ted and his wife Deborah run the South Shore Theatre Experience – a theater production company on the south shore of Long Island. Together combining over 60 years of stage experience, Deborah and Ted help bring the showmanship to life by helping kids and charities enjoy the thrill and majesty of theater like they’ve never seen before.

And that’s where our false beams come in. Ted Plezia is also known as “Thaddeus”  – and performs renowned shows Storytime Magic and The Magic of Thaddeus for thrilled audiences all over Long Island. One of his signature tricks is the “Levitation Illusion” and, to accomplish that, our faux wood beams come into play.

Because of their vivid realism, our faux wood products are the perfect option for other set design projects, too.

If you’ve ever watched a magic show, you probably know what to expect with the famous “levitating lady” trick – in which a beautiful assistant hovers in the air, seemingly unassisted. While we’ve all seen the trick countless times on television – and occasionally in real life, in shows like Ted’s – it’s one that never fails to impress.

And nor do Thaddeus’ faux wood beams – which he uses as set pieces, and slowly remove as his “levitation” illusion is revealed.

And much like the magic trick itself, our lengths of synthetic wood create a convincing illusion themselves; appearing to be solid lengths of timber, yet remaining light enough for Ted to lift, carry and store effortlessly. This is achieved by ordering four-sided lengths of our faux wood beams; each with seamless end-caps to appear solid.

This great shot shows the essential components of the “Levitation Illusion” – and how vividly realistic they are.

Created from light, yet tough polyurethane, these faux timber beams are molded from real timber; and vividly mimic each knot, grain, saw mark and imperfection – making them practically indistinguishable from real wood. Add in an intricately detailed finish in real wood coloring and the illusion is complete.

So much so that Ted and Deborah’s use of our faux wood products actually extends beyond just “The Magic of Thaddeus” – and has become a regular go to for other set design needs as well. Because they’re affordable, light and transportable and can be cut and connected using nothing but regular household carpentry tools, they are perfect for creating all sorts of stage-ready props and set pieces.

Do you know anybody else who uses our faux wood products in an unorthodox way, like Deborah and Ted? If so, we’d love to hear about it – we’re always looking for new stories and pictures to feature right here!

The post Making Magic with Faux Wood Beams appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

Brio, an Italian restaurant, was finished with a faux wood beam ceiling feature.

We recently received pictures of our Custom Aspen Beams in action – starring as the centerpiece of a nearly-opened Italian restaurant that looks mouthwateringly chic.

Their innovative designer has created an entire ceiling structure using our beams; perfectly recreating the sort of classic timber beamwork you’d see overhead if you tucked into pasta verde or spaghetti bolognaise in Milan or Rome.

But instead of being made from real timber, as the ceilings most often are in historic European cities, these beams are actually molded from light and durable polyurethane foam – making them incredibly quick and easy to install.

That’s ideal for a commercial setting; in which tearing down the previous storefront and installing the new one needs to be done quickly.

These beams can be cut to shape with a regular wood saw, and installed using suspension cables or just wooden mounting blocks and regular screws. They’re hollow, too – molded in a u-shape while allows easy installation of recessed lights, hidden speakers or vents – all vital components for a restaurant.

Looking up, you can see how perfectly these beams recreate the look of a real timber beam ceiling.

But the most important thing is that they look good – and from these photographs, you can see that this is something our beams are especially good at. Each one is created from a mold of a real Aspen beam; and features every grain, knot and imperfection vividly recreated in rigid foam.

Following the molding process, our beams can be finished in a variety of real-wood shades; intricately detailed so that they’re indistinguishable from the real thing. In this restaurant, that attention to detail is why the faux wood beams perfectly match all the other dark wood used to complete the restaurant decor.

As you can see, the finished design is perfect – seamlessly combining real wood with faux, and creating a fine dining experience worthy of the piazzas of Florence or Seville themselves. What do you think? Feeling hungry?

The post Restaurant Serves Up A Taste of Italy with Faux Wood Beams appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

These ugly, exposed pipes were a bathroom disaster, until Doug came up with his faux wood solution.

Doug and Carrie, from Wilmington, DE, love flipping houses.

“To us, the appeal isn’t just the money – although that’s nice!” Doug explains. “We also enjoy the whole process itself; the sense of achievement from turning something drab into something dramatic.”

But flipping houses isn’t always straightforward – as their latest project demonstrated.

“We followed the golden rule of flipping,” Doug explains. “We bought the cheapest house in the best neighborhood; and when it came to renovating it, we certainly got our money’s worth of challenges.”

Doug and Carrie’s 1940s ranch-style home hadn’t seemed to have been updated for decades; and what problems had been previously fixed were done with less than perfect solutions.

“For example, in the bathroom they’d replaced the old lead and copper water pipes with PVC ones a few years ago; but instead of running them behind the drywall, they’d left them running exposed along the ceiling instead! It looked terrible!”

Not only did it look terrible, but the cost of ripping down the drywall and replacing the pipes threatened to cut a big hole in Doug and Carrie’s renovation budget.

Fortunately, they had a solution.

Installed, the beams cover up the exposed pipes beautifully.

“In one of our previous flips, we’d used your faux wood beams in the living room – so we knew how light, affordable and easy to install they were,” says Doug. “What’s more – we knew they were hollow inside, and that gave us an idea.”

Doug and Carrie checked out the measurements and worked out that they could use our faux wood beams to neatly and easily slide over and cover the exposed piping.

“It wasn’t in our original vision for the home, but we purchased some of your custom Aspen beams to finish off the bathroom and they actually made a great addition to the ceiling.”

Pipes and vents fit seamlessly inside our u-shaped, hollow beams.

Because our beams are molded from tough and durable polyurethane, Doug was able to cut access holes for the t-shaped pipe junction using nothing but a regular wood saw – and the result was easy to slot over the exposed pipes and hide them completely. Using caulk and a saw, Doug was also able to connect other beams to create a ceiling framework that looked stunning.

“The beams attached to the ceiling with wooden mounting blocks and screws,” he explains, “and from start to finish the whole project took me less than a day to install.”

As a result, the ugly exposed pipes were hidden and for a fraction of the cost of reinstalling them and putting up replacement drywall.

The post Faux Wood Beams Cover Up Ugly Bathroom Pipes appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

The secret to why our faux wood beams look so realistic is that they’re made using actual molds of real wood and timber. Our innovative molding process captures every grain, knot and imperfection, and then we recreate them perfectly in tough and durable molded polyurethane foam.

But what do the different product descriptions actually mean? If you’ve ever wondered what the differences are between different types of faux wood beams, this handy guide should fill you in:

• Timber Beams: Timber beams are molded from old wooden timbers, the ones used in the construction of historic homes and buildings. Because of their age, they’re uniquely patterned after decades of wear, tear and erosion. While the beams themselves are as structurally sound as ever, the unique aged look adds character and a historic appearance.
• Sandblasted Beams: Timber beams are still widely used in construction today, and one technique frequently used to finish and prepare them is sandblasting. Sandblasting is the high-pressure application of fine sand, which wears down the surface of the beam to smooth out saw marks and imperfections, while retaining the texture of grains and knots.
• Custom Tuscany Beams: The unique look of these beams comes from “distressing” them by hand; usually with an ax. This adds uniquely textured imperfections and marks in the wood that are characteristic of “old world” timber, especially popular in Spain, Italy and the south of France.
• Custom Woodland Beams: Woodland beams are the default style; machine-sawn and finished to combine a clean appearance with the texture and character of grains, knots and other imperfections. They’re a great choice for adding the character of real wood to a home design project, yet retaining a fresh and modern appearance.
• Custom Axed Beam: The dramatic texture of the custom axed beam comes from the way it’s made; chopped to shape using nothing more than an ax, as pioneers and pilgrims might have done. This technique adds a distinctive and vivid pattern to the wood, which is perfect for rustic or frontier-style design projects.
• Custom Hand Hewn Beams: Similar in style to the custom axed beam, hand hewn beams are cut to size using a hand-saw – a strenuous and time-consuming task that leaves a distinctive pattern to the finished product. Again, these beams are ideal for giving the appearance of a homestead or ranch; rustic and hand-crafted.
• Custom Aspen Beams: This style of beam features a distinctive raised grain appearance, and takes its name from the towering Rocky Mountain redwoods and other deep-grain timber used to source the wood from. These beams are popular with people trying to achieve a cabin or ski-lodge look to their home design projects.
• Custom Resawn Beams: Resawing is a mechanical cutting technique used in the timber industry towards the end of the 19th century. Resawing technology gave beams and planks from that era a unique and desirable look; making them sought after by homeowners and designers looking to add a little period charm to their projects.
• Chamfered Beams: These beams are distinctive because of their chamfered edges – beveled to give a smoother edge to the corners. Commonly used in chateaus and monastery’s in 16th and 17th century France, they’re an option still popular in modern-day hunting lodges and other design projects looking to add a distinctive, period look.
• Pecky Cypress Beams: Increasingly rare and sought-after, pecky cypress beams are made from the wood of cypress trees that have become riddled with the stereum taxodil fungus. This creates hollow spots in the wood, which give it a unique and desirable appearance. One reason going “faux” is a better option than using authentic pecky cypress is because modern lumbering means pecky cypress is increasingly difficult, and expensive, to get hold of.

The post What Are The Different Types of Faux Wood Beams? appeared first on Faux Wood Workshop.

The vivid textures of our unfinished faux wood products make them perfect for drybrushing.

Our false beams and faux wood products are available finished in a variety of real-wood colors; all intricately detailed to perfectly mimic the look and hue of authentic cedar, oak, walnut and other natural woods.

But for homeowners looking to match their faux wood products with existing wooden features – or who want a different look to their synthetic wood – you can order many of our products unfinished; and stain or paint them yourself to achieve any look conceivable.

We have great guides to painting and finishing your faux wood beams here, plus blog posts that cover cool tips and tricks like staining knots on your false beams. But one cool trick we haven’t covered before is the art of drybrushing.

Drybrushing is a finishing technique used to highlight the texture of surfaces; and is particularly well-suited to finishing our faux wood products because they’re all vividly detailed with rich, authentic textures taken from molds of real wood and timber.

Drybrushing is almost the exact opposite of staining – in which dark colors pool into the crevices and cracks of textured surfaces to make them appear darker and more pronounced. In contrast, drybrushing involves adding a lighter color to the raised areas of a textured surface; which is especially useful when painting or staining in lighter colors.

You will need:

• The faux wood product(s) you’re intending to finish
• A base-color paint or stain
• A lighter color paint to drybrush with – we recommend water-based acrylic
• A large, soft paintbrush
• Paper towels, or dry rags

Drybrushing is particularly effective when you’re painting or finishing with lighter colors, as it highlights rather than adds depth.

To drybrush, you’ll need to first paint or stain your faux wood products in the darker of the colors you’re intending to use. Leave the painted product to thoroughly dry overnight.

When you’re ready to begin, dip your paintbrush in the drybrushing paint and then use your paper towels or dry rags to wipe off almost all the paint from the paintbrush. You can tell when you’ve wiped off enough when only the raised surfaces of your rag or paper towel are smeared with paint.

Then, use broad strokes to paint your faux wood product with the wiped-clean brush. You will immediately notice that the brush leaves paint on only the raised surfaces; giving you a stunning, highlight finish characteristic of drybrushing.

Some things to remember:

• “Dry” is optimum word. If you wash your brush between coats, be sure to dry it thoroughly before trying to drybrush again, or the residual moisture will totally spoil the effect.
• Less is more. If you leave too much paint on the brush, you will ruin the effect just as you might with a wet brush. Make sure you wipe almost all the paint from the brush before you begin. A good rule of thumb is: When you’ve wiped off too much paint, you’re left with just about enough.

If you’ve tried this drybrushing technique, and have photos to share, we’d love to see them! Send them to us at info@fauxwoodbeams.com. We might even feature them here!

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