Beam Me Up, Scotty! (Sorry): Building a Faux Beam in the Garage

I’m starting to get really excited about my garage. Sure, it is still an ugly, dingy, hole, but with my recent success learning masonry to patch a huge hole in the wall I feel like I’m finally getting leverage on the project. I’m sort of bummed that winter is coming and it will soon be too cold to work in there!

I took advantage of some relatively moderate fall weather to knock off one more big project: dealing with the exposed ducts which lent an air of “industrial sophistication” to the space.

The ducts don’t actually run all the way across the room. However, there is a hole on the other side of the garage, which we could use it to extend heat to our sunroom in the future. (I chose not to patch this when I was sealing the other hole so we can keep that option open.)

Still, I decided to build a faux beam that would go all the way across, because I thought one stopping in the middle of the ceiling would look just a little strange.

Because the rest of the garage doesn’t look strange at all.

The biggest challenge with designing this beam is that I don’t have a lot of extra space to work with. The ducts already drop to only 7 feet off the ground – as low as the other beams in the space. I didn’t want to build something that would hang down too low and only reinforce the impression that this isn’t a garage, and instead is a dark, scary cave where a bear might live.

To save vertical space and weight, I decided to make it out of 1/4″ plywood, and mapped out how to construct it out of 1 1/2 sheets from Home Depot. We had them make the cuts there, because Sage’s table saw is inconveniently far away from my garage, and because the 4′ x 8′ sheets wouldn’t fit in the car otherwise. Even so, it was a tight fit coming home.

With the supplies home, we still had to make a few additional cuts. We held the pieces in place and marked any measurements that were a little off. We also had to cut angled end-pieces to fit around the weird ledge on one side of the garage.

I just marked and measured as best I could, and then availed myself of Sage’s jigsaw to trim the pieces down to size. (Everyone needs a friend with power tools.)

Below you can see the overall plan: a ridiculously wide but shallow beam that really shouldn’t have been so hard for me to figure out the measurements for.

Since I was working with 1/4″ plywood, I needed to add material to the joints so the screws would have something to hold onto. The measurements were wide enough for a 1″ block on either side, so I joined the pieces together with that, wood glue, and an L-bracket.

I added a bunch along either side, and it ended up being very sturdy!

Buoyed by the success of that plan, I decided to do the same along the top, where it would attach to the ceiling. I started by ~~tricking~~ asking nicely for Brad to help hold up the contraption so I could mark where it would line up with a stud in the ceiling. (I had found the studs earlier using the very sophisticated realize-your-stud-finder-is-out-of-batteries-and-instead-just-knock-on-the-ceiling-and-take-your-best-guess method.)

I then attacked L-brackets, again reinforced by a block of wood and wood glue on the other side.

Things were starting to look pretty strange in here.

Undeterred, I used some thin pieces of scrap wood to reinforce the bottom, which will hopefully prevent it from sagging.

I also added some insulation, fitting it in wherever I could. The garage is unheated, and we don’t want to be wasting energy having some of our heat leak into the space!

However, even though I had bought a pretty thin insulation, it was still too thick given the tight dimensions of the beam around the ducts. I had to tear off about half of the material so we got down to a much thinner layer.

Next, I had Brad hold it up while I attached it to the ceiling.

OK, you got me, that was just a dramatic reenactment of the actual holding up of the beam.

What, do you think I should have left Brad balancing precariously on a folding chair, holding up a heavy beam, while I stopped to take a photo?!

This got the bulk of the beam up. Forgive the terrible nighttime photo, but this shows how this big contraption makes it most of the way across the space. (Unfortunately, given the plywood dimensions, it had to be done in different pieces.)

The rest was pretty easy. I stuffed the end with the extra pieces of insulation.

And I attached the final pieces of the sides and bottom to meet the far wall.

I’m so proud of my beam! (Just ignore all the random junk in there and look at the ceiling.)

I mean, no one is pretending that this is high-quality construction:

In my defense, the ceiling isn’t exactly even. However, once it is patched, caulked, and painted, I’m betting it will look just fine.

And let’s just remember where we started!

It feels so good to have that hole patched and this very ugly duct situation covered up. I’ll still need to figure out how to cover the still-visible part of the remaining hole on the other side, but that is minor compared to the other challenges I’ve overcome in this space.

This was definitely a challenging project for me. Besides the dubious success of my DIY console table, I really have no experience working with wood or constructing things. This faux beam is not perfect but it is attached to the ceiling, hides the ducts, and looks something like a beam. Success!

This is one more big project that we can cross off the garage makeover list. I’m not saying we’re anywhere near done, but we’re at least getting closer!