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Table of Contents

• Prep Work
• Cutting Lumber
• Assembling the Beams
• Distressing the Beams
• Staining
• Prepping to Hang the Beams
• Hanging the Beams and Finished Beams

Ceiling and Room Prep Work

This ceiling is heavily textured, so the first thing I will do is spray down and scrape this texture. If you want a full tutorial on scraping textured ceilings you can read the blog post! A large part of the preparation for this room transformation is taping the windows and doors to protect them from any debris or paint. Before you scrape any texture off of your ceiling, make sure to test for asbestos. Once my ceiling was scraped it was time to paint. I decided to paint the walls first, then the ceiling afterward. Spraying the ceiling with paint made me nervous, but I did it and it worked so well!

Cutting Lumber to Make the Faux Wood Beams

Now it is time to make the faux wood beams! These beams are going to be massive because the ceiling is so big. I am using a feather board for the first time on this project. I am using this because I am going to attempt a very long bevel cut. The table saw setup is very important for this cut. The long piece of wood needs to be flat on the table saw. To do this I clamp lumber against the rip fence as well as the feather board. I have my table saw set to a little more than 45 degrees, about 46 degrees. This angle gives me some wiggle room in creating the beveled joint. My setup is definitely not professional, I am just working with what I have! I created so much sawdust while doing this cutting!

Once my lumber has been cut the long way, it is time to lay it out and cut the angled ends. Because I am creating beams across a vault, both the top and the bottom need to have angled cuts. I determined that some areas on my walls needed 17-degree angle cuts and some needed 18 degrees. This cutting was very complex! When I had all 5 beams cut, 15 separate pieces of lumber, I was so relieved! I also put a stop block on my miter saw and cut a bunch of 1x4s to the exact distance between the hollow beams.

Assembling the Faux Wood Beams

Now that all my lumber is cut, it is time to assemble the beams! I am going to assemble these by laying the beveled side down and running packaging tape along both of the seams. The packaging tape is going to help hold it together as I try to flip the three pieces of lumber over. When the beams are flipped I apply wood glue to the beveled edges and stick them together. In the places where the wood is bowing, or not perfectly straight, I am shooting brad nails in to hold it tight. The next day, when the glue was dry, I am removing all of the packaging tape that I applied when flipping the lumber over. The joint is so strong, the wood glue is so strong.

Distressing the Wood Beams

Now that my beams look perfect, I am going to put them through the ringer! I want them to look like old-world beams like they have been weathered through time. I am going to start the distressing process by using a planar, this hand planar is going to randomly take thickness off in different areas on every side of these beams. Once I am done using that, I am going in with my jigsaw. I am using the jigsaw to rough up all of the edges. I used a few more distressing techniques to rough up this wood including; a wire brush drill bit and whipping them with chains.

Staining

Once the distressing is done, I am going in with 80-grit sandpaper on my random orbital sander to sand all of my beams. This is to get rid of the slivers I made while distressing and also to prepare the lumber for staining. The stain that I mixed up is custom, I mixed chestnut and American walnut. I did this in an attempt to match the existing trim in the living room. It was so fun to put stain on these beams because all of the distressing details came to life.

Preparing to Hanging the Faux Wood Beams

To hang these faux wood beams I first need to plan out where they will go using my laser level. The laser-level casts perpendicular and parallel lines across the ceiling. I measured out exactly how my 5 beams would be evenly spaced and marked that on the wall, and then I cast my laser level to make a perfectly straight line across the entire ceiling. This allows me to use Sharpie on the ceiling and mark where I should put my supports. I am not running a full board of supports for this beam, I am just putting the small supports exactly where I need to screw the boards in. I am using my magnetic stud finder on the wall side of my laser level to see if there is a ceiling joist.

If there is a ceiling joist where I want my beam I will be screwing wood to wood and it will be very strong. If the beam does not align with a ceiling joist I will install with toggle bolts. The supports are the spacers cut to the width of the inside of the hollow wood beams. The top and bottom of each beam will get the same supports. I want the beam to be attached to both the wall and the ceiling, it needs a lot of connection points. It is so important that these beams do not sag or fall.

Hanging the Faux wood Beams

To hang these beams I am getting help. My neighbor and husband are holding the beams in place and I am coming through and screwing them into place. I pre-drilled holes into the beam so I knew exactly where to put the screws. Some of the spots needed some coaxing to get flush with the ceiling. These beams are very secure to the ceiling. I am in awe of how good these beams turned out! If you liked this interior upgrade DIY and want to see more, my post on how to lay self leveling concrete is a great place to start!

I am in awe of how good these beams turned out! If you liked this interior upgrade DIY and want to see more, my post on how to lay self leveling concrete is a great place to start!

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This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. For full disclosures and practices, please visit my policy page.

Table of Contents

• A Quick Before and After
• Removal and Prep
• Ceiling Makeover
• New Flooring Install
• Fireplace Build
• Fixing the Front Door
• The Completed Living Room!

Before and After

Removal and Prep

The first project in this living room makeover was to remove the crusty dusty carpet from the floor and stairs. I patched and painted the stair risers right away just to make them look a bit better before moving on. To prepare the walls and ceilings for painting, I removed and labeled baseboards and scraped the popcorn texture off the ceilings. I patched, cleaned, and primed the dirty walls. Then covered and taped everything I didn’t want my paint sprayer to get.

Painting and Beam Prep

I used my Graco Magnum X7 airless sprayer to apply paint to the walls. It was so easy I only needed one coat because I used the Behr Marquee line in the color French Beige. After the paint dried, I put Frogtape and plastic up, then used my paint sprayer again for the ceiling. It wasn’t as scary spraying a ceiling as I thought it would be and went so fast!

My extravagant plans for the ceiling required me to add height to the bulkhead that went over the hallway and stairs. The bulkhead was not low enough to match up with the depth of the beams I wanted to build. This led me to add lumber screwed into the studs and mesh tape over the seams. After coating the whole addition in several layers of joint compound, priming, and painting, you’d never know it was modified!

Living Room Beams

I moved on to building the beams after I completely prepped and painted the ceiling! Using 16 ft long pieces of grade 2 pine, I cut beveled edges lengthwise on my table saw. I assembled them using packaging tape and wood glue. To get the perfect long beveled edges looking distressed, I came in with some power tools to beat these beams up. Once distressed and sanded, I used a custom mix stain of Chestnut and American Walnut to bring life the beams. For beam installation, I planned out my wood supports with a laser level and put blocks in the ceiling, then screwed the beams in.

Flooring Install

Next up was to install the flooring. I cleaned and prepped the subfloor for the new flooring! The flooring I used was the Mohawk RevWood Select waterproof laminate in the color fawn chestnut. I removed the railing and gave it a fresh coat of paint after the flooring was completely in. I installed the laminate treads to the stairs and reinstalled the baseboards which I had sanded, re-stained, and resealed while they were off. That was a lot of work!

Living Room Fireplace Build

To build the fireplace focal point for my living room I started framing up walls that would hold prefab cabinets in them. I measured out my faux rock panels as the determining dimensions for how I wanted the slanted wall to look. This left me with a 32-degree angle to cut and install my slanted walls and create this custom fireplace surround. The faux rock panels were my favorite part and brought so much texture and style to the space. For the fireplace I chose a stove-style electric fireplace so I didn’t need to add venting. I included details like firewood, pokers, and a piece of pipe to make it look more realistic and charming. 

Front Door Fix

Before the last step of furniture installation, I installed the new front door. I picked up this insulated metal front door on clearance because it had a few dents and fix it with this SteelStick product. I sanded it flush, primed it, and painted it once the putty was dry! You would never know there was a blemish there after the process was done!

Complete Living Room Makeover

I can’t believe it’s the same space as before.

This large living room comes to life with the fireplace, beams and Article’s gorgeous furniture levels it up even more. I chose the Hamber Oxford Black Sofa and Timpani Charme Ottoman that have tufting to speak to the vintage chairs I have flanking the fireplace. The two Baarlo Side Tables are heavy-duty and solid oak.

My living room design is all grounded by Article’s Nabilu Rug which brings comfort and dimension to the space. I had so much fun designing this room to flow with how the kitchen looks now! I hope you love this living room makeover as much as I do!

If you loved this room transformation and want to see more, start on my bedroom makeover!

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We had gotten new sofas, one of them being hideous and extremely comfortable for my husband and the other being stylish and simplistic for me. Can you guess which was which?

I tried hanging a HUGE piece of abstract wall art above it to make it look more modern and aesthetically pleasing. We lived with this sofa for about six weeks and then one night my husband came to me for a confession. If he had a tail, it would’ve been between his legs. He said, “Honey you know that reclining La-Z-Boy sofa I insisted on getting? Well, it’s not as comfortable as I thought it would be and to be honest, I don’t really like it.”

Within a week, I had it sold. I was so happy to be rid of that thing!

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The only thing I liked about the sofa was the leather material juxtaposed with the other textures in the room. To replace the ugly brown monster, I got a set of two club chairs and a small sofa that fit with the modern style I was aiming for. Now our living room looks like this.

Very similar, but oh so much better.

The new club chairs set up a perfect conversation area. And that ottoman actually didn’t come with the set, I found it for $1 at a garage sale! Score!

On the other side of the room, the matching sofa provides so much more seating than we’ve ever had. Our living room is the largest room in our home and we entertain often, I’m so grateful to now have 8 seats in this space.

This room still has a few things I’d like to update. I have plans for the stair baluster behind the leather couch. Stay tuned to see how that all turns out. Plus, I’m still not completely happy with our never-ending TV stand saga since my barn window table broke. Another living room update to come I guess.

Nevertheless, it feels good to have furniture I LOVE and a cohesive look to the most important space in our home.

The space still has a lot of different textures to add interest in the design and certainly some bold color.

I still enjoy having the plants in my home (I haven’t killed them all…yet).

If you ask my husband how he’s coping with the constantly changing living room, he’ll probably do this:

But really, that couch is the best place for a nap.

Thanks for reading my living room update! If you like what you see and you want to read more, check out these projects featured in this living room.

Teal coffee table
DIY lamps
Abstract wall art
Hanging macrame planter

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