garden-level-040115

Exposed Beams – Garden Level

Here’s a question for the y’all . . .The garden level of our (two) family brownstone was completely gutted (extremely cheaply) years ago before we bought it. It is essentially just one large open space with the kitchen towards the rear. We hate the ceiling. You can clearly see the outlines of the sheetrock panels and the HUGE can lights continue to depress us.

We are CONSIDERING removing the ceiling to expose the beams, redo the electrical and then put in some insulation and slimmer panels of ceiling in between the beams so that you can still see them.

Is this a very complex project or is it as straightforward as removing the ceiling, having the electrician do their thing and then installing the insulation and new ceiling panels? Anyone done something like this before?

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What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. If you’re keeping the house a two-family, exposing the joists is out of code, due to fire rating concerns others have mentioned. When desired, this is usually accomplished with fake joists that are installed over a fire-rated ceiling covering (drywall, etc.). May not be an issue if you’re doing the work off-permit, but if you need DOB sign-off, you won’t get it with exposed joists in a two-family dwelling – even with the cavities insulated. If it’s single-family, no problem. The issue is that DOB wants the fire rating between units.

  2. We are in the midst of doing this. My thought was that the bottom of the floor joists is at about 7.5′, so by insetting the drywall into the joist bay you make a low basement ceiling feel a bit more open and give visual interest besides.

    First, as your garden level is heated, and you also apparently live above it you might not need to be so concerned about soundproofing/insulating the ceiling to protect yourself from your own noise – unless you’re doing a home theater/music/play area under a kids bedroom, etc. If you didn’t need to insulate you could consider just sanding and finishing the joists – as that doesn’t require any particular skill – just patience.

    I’m not sure what the best approach will be for mounting the drywall to the inside of the joist bays. Maybe the best is to screw furring strips to each side of each joist bay to hang the drywall and then use corner bead to finish the edges, or there is also a vinyl edge bead at HD with a strip that tears off that could be used to make a neat finish and keep joint compound off the bays. At my place we’re trying to instead screw the corner bead to the joists and suspend the drywall from the corner bead. It seems to be solidly in place, but only time will tell if this is going to end up being very susceptible to cracks.

    Finishing the drywall is going to be a big project as every joist bay will end up having 30-40 feet of edge that needs finishing and you’ll probably need to do 30+ bays, but I think the look should be a good one, and help make a low-ceilinging space a bit more pleasant.

  3. The main reason not to do this is fire protection. Row houses/brownstones are non fireproof. The Code requires one hour fire rated material at the ceiling/floor of the joists. The theory is that it will take a fire one hour to burn through rated sheetrock or plaster – enough time for you to get out of the building, provided you have a functioning smoke detector.
    I’ve seen several of these open joist ceilings and will wager none was done with a permit. My advice would be to change the lighting and create some type of architectural division between the spaces to mitigate the white box look.

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