Arghh..paint old oak beams or not?

[Flatbread]

We have an old farmhouse with blackened oak beams in the dining room and living room. The ceilings are low and the windows small. So the rooms look dark and heavy.

We have the painter over and tested painting the kitchen beams with F&B matt All White. Looks ok, but has a very painted feel.

Don't really want to follow through in the dining room, but not sure what else we can do to lighten the room.

Any suggestions? Painter is here tomorrow as well. Maybe limewash is the solution, but how on earth do we get it in France (I heard it takes 6 months to age). Or is lime wax an alternative...?

I also have some casein distemper in Pointing from F&B, should I use that instead on the beams and ceiling?

Or just leave it alone and get used to to the heavy look?

So confused...please help!

We are currently renovating an old French house and we have old beams that cross the living room. They used to be covered in old lattice work plaster, we uncovered them primarily to see what state they were in and to see if they needed treated for wood worm. We have treated them and hummed and hawed about sanding/painting them.

They are quite black and sooty as (apparently) in the old days people used to fire beams in order to protect them against parasites. Sanding would be a NIGHTMARE - our neighbour did this and spent about 20 hours per beam sanding and cleaning up the hideous amount of sooty dust.

We decided to paint ours but painted them with a light watered down lime paint - we did a sort of 'wash' over them. The result is that the beams are lighter and don't darken the room but their natural colour and 'life' has come through the paint and they still look old but with a modern touch. We didn't try to paint in the worm holes/cracks in the beams but did a light wash over them - letting them breathe.

We are really pleased with the result and it is something that could easily be sanded off if a future owner decides they hate it.

I have seen loads of French houses with this look - it brightens things up but keeps the charm and original look of the old beams. The trick is to keep the paint light enough to just brighten the beams up without actually 'painting' them IYSWIM.

Whee did you get lime paint, Beach? Is it the same as lime wash? Would love to see some photos of your room, please

Have looked at your profile - your beams seem similar to ours (but perhaps in better nick).

If you use a natural water based paint you won't destroy them for ever more - it would be easily sanded off as you would need to sand them a whole lot more than just a light paint level to get them to look good.

Honestly, go for it. We did a small 'try' on ours and it looked so good we just kept going and painted them all.

Dark beams are soooo oppressive.

We mixed the lime paint ourselves but I'm pretty sure you can buy it. I don't have this vocabulary in English we just mixed up a light 'peinture à la chaux' (chaux and water).

My PIL did the same effect with a basic acrylic matt paint that they watered down slightly.

Haven't taken any photos yet but will try to soon.

The trick is to do it in one coat - you need the paint to be light enough that it soaks into the beam and doesn't leave brush stokes,ideally you want to do it in one coat - just enough paint to do a light wash that lightens the beams and not too much paint so that they don't look painted, they look bleached.

I was dead nervous about doing ours, worried we would 'ruin' them, but honestly they look miles better than before.

Don't sand them, get them sandblasted. They will then be things of beauty and will go fine with clean line decor but your F&B paintwork will be history and there will be an inch of sand in the room above

Forgot to say we put linseed oil in the paint.

Sandblasting is very effective but you will live in a beach for the forthcoming months.

we have just used this wood stain rather than painting. Reckon it's pretty amazing stuff, doesn't give a painted brush stroke effect but soaks in. As you can see there's a good range of colours, maybe going with one of the paler colours you could achieve a slightly lighter/brighter atmosphere in the room. On the downside I'm guessing your plasterer won't be able to get his hands on this kind of stuff before he leaves, but if you are going to leave them for a year it might be worth looking into.

My friend stripped every beam In her 4 bedroom tudor cottage by hand. You apply the coating, let it dry, peel it off and scrub. It took her weeks and she worked her arse off, but the difference is amazing. She has incredibly low ceilings, and the rooms were very dark. They are now gorgeous. Strip back, paint in light colours and use mirrors and stuff to enhance the light.
IMO if you have an Historical building, you have to look after and preserve its character and history. You can't paint those beams. They will be eternally painted, it will never fully come off. That part of the buildings presence will be irrevocably changed.
Is it even allowed if the building is listed?
If you don't like the beams, why not just put up a false season to hide them?

Don't paint the beams, pleeeeeeease.

Paint the ceiling between them, or get a light floor covering or white covers for the furniture or get rid of dark or heavy curtains. Or look at your lighting options. Mirrors are great.

I personally can't stand very dark oak beams and would prefer white painted or stripped/bleached. However, I think you need to be very careful about how you approach this as many paints could potentially damage them or be a nightmare for the future preservation the beams. (Although I imagine F&B would be quite safe.) I would contact somesort of buildings heritage organisation and ask them what they recommend. If you can somehoe stip the colour back then I imagine distemper/limewash would be a good thing to use and give a more natural, distressed finish than solod white paint. Whatever you do make sure they end up matt and not shiny.

Oh sorry - didn't read the thread - I see lime has been mentioned!

And it was in your OP. Sorry. Really not paying attention this morning!

St1ggy, the wood stain looks really promising...would love to see some pictures of your beams.

It would be great if there was a product that is white, that actually helps preserves the beams and then fades away over time, so one can choose to reapply or leave in a natural state.

I thought limewash was the product to use, but Beech, have heard that linseed oil yellows the finish over time but if you don't use it, you get powdery beams that keep giving dust, not good for a dining room!

I bought some very expensive casein distemper in Pointing from F&B for lime rendered walls. Should I try it on a bedroom ceiling that has not very nice beams (these beams were put in 50 years back and they used a mixed variety of woods)?

OK, decided - I will try it on the bedroom upstairs and report back.

Thanks all of you, you are great!

I am feeling really bad I spent all this money on F&B paints. Their delivery service was appalling and I could have probably got the same natural products here at a fraction of the cost if I was not in such a tearing hurry. Oh why didn't I plan all this in time and have this discussion on MN months back instead of in the final few days of the renovation project ?

Hilly, you couldn't be half as groggy as me this morning, the dogs kept me up all night and now they are sleeping while I am trying to sort out the paints for the painter who is finishing rooms at an alarmingly quick rate.

Yes I think linseed oil yellows the finish - we didn't want our beams to be white as that would be too harsh. The soot and the natural colour of the wood has come through the wash and they are a creamy very light beige (probably sounds horrible but it softens the white of the plaster board between the beams).

They look like this www.forum-peintures.com/forum-questions-peinture-comment-choisir.html#fe-1052-3-1-2-1

(Click on the small image with the sofa to get a bigger picture)

Beach, the beams in the photo look lovely, exactly the look we are after! They seem to have a greyish matt look. Beautiful cover, quite light with the wood grain showing through.

Beachcomber I'm sorry but I think those look a bit too painted IMHO.

oh dear, isn't there a look that everyone agrees is beautiful? That way I will know that I have got it right

LOL

Just a bit thinner paint type of thing

I do feel your pain Flatbread as we live in a Tudor house with lots of exposed beams. I love some of them and absolutely hate others. I had two years of people saying "you can't do anything to the beams, leave them"

I them grew a pair and realised it was my house and I was the one who had to live in it

If you want to paint them do it!! As I said you have to sit in that room and if you don't like the beams it will annoy you for ever.

We took the drastic action of covering some of the beams up, by putting in a new ceiling. The main large beams are still visible but the ones in between are covered. We did that in the kitchen and main sitting room and it made a huge difference to the feeling of space and light in these rooms. I love those rooms now and I didn't before. So if it will make that much difference to how YOU feel about your home just do it!!

Quicklookbusy - you have got me thinking. Ours isn't as old as Tudor, but we do have big beams (lovely) and smaller cross beams (not so lovely). We had the kitchen ones sandblasted, and I love the end effect, but if we were to plasterboard over the smaller and much less attractive crossbeams in the sitting room (not sure I could face sandblasting again) then it would also save the hassle of getting rid of the artex between beams and they would, after all, still be there if someone wanted to uncover them in the future...

Ours a probably a bit less well done painted than that TBH.

I agree with you QuickLookBusy - our beams were very ugly before we painted them. I think there are certain things in a house it would be a real shame to alter but not black sooty beams with worm holes in them.

Perhaps we are a bit more gung ho about these things in France - I live in a very old village, all the houses are old stone with beams, etc. People respect the buildings and renovate them thoughtfully but they don't agonise over brightening things up a bit and not leaving them in their original state.

Stealthsquiggle, your beam situation is exactly the same as ours-you explained it much better than me!

I agree about the fact they can be uncovered in the future too. It's a win win situation.

And Flatbread I would also say that if you want to paint your beams future generations can have them sandblasted. It isn't as if you are destroying them, the beams are still there.

DH duly persuaded (that was easy). Unfortunately inspite of the hole in the ceiling the sitting room is not at the top of the list yet... same approach could work for dining room, though.