Installing bead board in family room

[bmuir]

Above is a rough sketch of my family room. I want to run bead board in the four areas between the three beams. I want the bead to run the 16 foot width of the room, parallel to the beams.
That means that I will have three segments of bead board (I don't want the seam of only two eight-foot boards in the center of the room) butting end-to-end (two seams). The perimeter of each segment will be trimmed with crown molding.
Question: "What do I do (use) to hide the seams made by the panels butting up to each other?" Yes, I could run the board perpendicular to the way I want to go, but I think that might look a bit strange with the bead lines running that way. Maybe it is just me.
Thanks,

Bill

[Larryl]

That is a tuff problem. You might want to trim the beads into strips two or three beads wide and stagger them like flooring. IOW if you can't hide the seams, stick them out like thats the way you want them.

[cabinetman]

Other than a small moulding there's not much choice except for runnung the direction some other way. How about segmented sections of diagonals, like a coffer effect. It would be a lot of cutting 45's but interesting.



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[mrmenace]

How about chair rail?

You can put flat boards underneath the chair rail and crown molding so they tie together. The boards under the chair rail would cover the seams.

Then you could stop the chair rail a few inches short of the ends. (this is how the chair rail is in my house, it stops a few inches short at the ends of walls)

I think it also looks beautiful if you have beadboard on the bottom 3-4 feet of a wall and top it off with trim or chair rail. Then you could have small bits of molding (quarter round?) along the sides of the beams.

Oh, I wish I had time to do this in my dining room. I bet your family room will look great.

[StickSeler]

Add a beam @ 8' runnin left to right, or add 3 so you end up with 12 boxes 4'x4'

[Jan]

You can buy 16' tongue and groove bead board. For paint grade I like WindsorOne. Check their website for dealers.

[Tom in SoCal]

I think you might want to reconsider the orientation of the beadboard. It (IMO) should run perpendicular to the beams in order to achieve a natural look. The reason being that if it were actually "real" boards being supported by the beams they would necessarily run perpendicular to the beams.