Wooden celings can add a warm feeling to a room.
Most ceilings in conventional housing are made of drywall painted white. While white painted drywall makes a perfectly acceptable ceiling, it isn't all that special. Natural wood can be used to create all kinds of different effects if you are looking for something different for the ceilings in your house. From elegant to zany, you can do it with wood.
Natural Cathedral Ceiling
A lovely and natural effect can be attained by paneling a cathedral ceiling with tongue and groove pine. All it needs is several coats of linseed oil to preserve its natural tone. The light wood will darken over time, eventually achieving an aged patina that will cast a lovely glow over the room.
Carved Ceilings
Don't pursue this idea unless you have a lot of time on your hands. To carve the wood for an entire ceiling would probably take years, but you would certainly have a conversation piece by the time you were finished. Pine, basswood and poplar are all relatively light woods that lend themselves well to carving. The easiest way to carve a wooden ceiling is to lay the boards out in a shop and to carve them before you place them on the ceiling, thereby saving yourself the trouble of laying on your back on a scaffold for several years like Michelangelo.
Painted Wood
Painted wood can be as simple as a single color for the purpose of lightening the look of the room or as elaborate as a ceiling-mounted mural. Wood carving can be combined with painting to create an effect that is both colorful and three dimensional. Painted wood effects for dramatic ceilings could include faux clouds and trompe l'oeil skies, angels with trumpets or geometric designs.
Recycled Barn Wood
A rustic effect can be achieved by making a ceiling out of the recycled wood from a barn. Many old barns have enormous beams in them that could be repurposed as exposed timber frame beams in a house. If you are ambitious and live in a rural area, you can sometimes find barns in bad condition that the owners are willing to sell cheaply in exchange for you removing them. Be forewarned that this is not easy work. A rustic country home that features 8x8- or 10x10-inch barn beams in its ceiling would be a step above the painted drywall that is the norm.
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