Putting Up Old Growth Pine Beams on Garage Ceiling

Putting up old growth pine beams on our garage ceiling made the preservation efforts we’ve grown to love come to life!

man putting up old growth pine beams in garage ceiling

Our intention was to put up a beam in the center of the peak of our vaulted garage ceiling for an aesthetic look and feel. It was a project we wanted to tackle for some time, but it just wasn’t a priority as we had so many other projects going on.

Nate seemed to find an opportunity to finally work on this. Maybe it had something to do with him finding the old growth pine beam gems from Facebook Marketplace. After a three hour drive to pick them up, I’m guessing the excitement propelled this particular project forward.

PINE BEAMS FOR GARAGE CEILING

When Nate got the beautiful gems home, he worked on cleaning and restoring them before putting them up on the garage ceiling. Then he worked to dry fit the beams before permanently installing them. That way he could make sure that they fit properly with all the new framing around them as well.

And this is why we have been calling our house the little pine cottage. Most of the wood on the inside and outside, including these new (old) beams are pine.

There is something so special about having beams on the ceiling. It’s not an easy task, but worth the effort and beauty of their glorious display! That is exactly what we were able to experience, but not without all the effort. At least Nate’s effort.

PREP WORK FOR OLD GROWTH PINE BEAMS

There was also quite a bit of prep work involved in getting these beams ready for dry fitting and installation. Nate cleaned the beams with soap and water, and scrubbed them with a scrub brush. Probably best to use a power washer if you are tackling the same project.

He also sanded the beams with an electric sander and wire wheel to get any loose dirt and junk off of them. But he still wanted to go over them with tung oil.

The prep work seems to always takes the most time when working on any project. But it must be done for the final product to turn out the way you want it to.

STRATEGY FOR PUTTING UP PINE BEAMS

To visually see more of the pine beam, Nate placed a 2×6 on top of the beam. That part would be installed in the vaulted ceiling so you wouldn’t be able to see it. Yet it would allow you to see more of the beam exposed instead of two inches less.

Essentially, the addition of the 2×6 made the 4×6 beam actually 6×6. In my opinion, that was a genius engineering, carpentry, or whatever you want to call it. A great strategy if you are also putting up beams in your vaulted ceiling. He would eventually cover the 2×6 with drywall and additional wood.

I’m not sure how he came up with this strategy, but I know that I would’ve never thought of this myself. What a brilliant man my hubby is to think of such a thing. He is always so good with details like that. I’m usually the one who doesn’t notice those kind of things.

APPLYING TUNG OIL TO PINE BEAMS

Nate bought some 100% pure tung oil from Amazon. It made the faded looking beams have a nice oiled or stained look to them. It turned out so beautiful.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the wood really sucks up the stuff so you may need more than you originally think, like we did. We ended up applying two coats of it to the beams. It was quite stinky, but looked so good.

This is the kind of project you want to work on outdoors like we did in our backyard. And if you find a spot outside of the elements (like weather) to store the beams for a couple of days to air out that would be ideal. That could be a storage shed or your garage. I believe we stored ours in the garage.

PUTTING UP OLD GROWTH PINE BEAMS

There were three beams that Nate planned on putting up in our garage ceiling. One in the middle of the vaulted ceiling peak and two on the sides of them.

These beams are really heavy though. And Nate was working by himself. I can’t believe he did what he did. I didn’t realize the extent of it until I started to edit our video and write this blog post about it.

He carefully worked the beams up the ceiling using a ladder as a helping hand. And placing each end of the beam in spaces on the wall to help him climb them up. It took a lot of patience and time. It was quite a task and one that I’d recommend you do with another person helping.

What an accomplishment to finally get all of this done in our garage. We have been waiting a long time to get to this point. After the beams were finally installed, he then was able to remove the temporary beams that he built as placeholders.

This project turned out to be huge success and relief. It was a long time coming. What a blessing to be able to tackle another big project on our very large renovation list. Now~ on to the next one!

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own~ while working full time jobs! Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead. Read more about us here.

You can also watch a video about this here.