Exposed ceilings - any experiences

[Waitforwhat]

So we are planing to convert the garage for a much needed office space. The room will be long and narrow (width ~2.5 m) and I was wondering whether it will be worth leaving the ceiling exposed + adding velux windows to make the place feel open. This is the ceiling now! I know it’s hideous! But did anyone do sth similar? Or shall I shelve the idea?

We want to do this in our daughters bedroom. It's part of an extension but the ceiling is quite low and makes it feel small. We want to vault the ceiling and put in a couple of velux windows. We know it will be tricky as there is a maze of plumbing up there, but it will be worth it.

That’s what I am thinking too! Although the room will be used as an office space for the foreseeable. We can potentially market/use it as a second reception/sung. And hopefully it will be a nice/airy space for us to enjoy! 😊 I have no idea of additional costs involved but we can only dream!

I would do it for sure! I’m thinking of doing the same in my garage even though it’s only used for storage.

If you go on the velux website the price for the units is fairly transparent. The fitting isn’t as complex as I thought it was either although admittedly I’m also quite naive to sky lights!

Any ideas of costs at all? Assuming it will add to work compared to having a low flat ceiling?

I was quoted £900 to fit vulex window (incl the window itself). Is this reasonable?

Yes, def! We need building regs for the garage conversion so insulation is a must. Lucky for us there are no cables/plumbing to reroute as no other floor on top if the garage, but surely a ceiling with a slope will be more expensive!

You will need to replace the whole roof, yours is built with roof trusses and it’s not designed to have any of the supports removed, it would take all the strength out of the roof if you did.

You could leave the vertical and horizontal roof trusses exposed and insulate and board over the sloped trusses, adding velux in between the roof beams if they fit? You'd need to check with building control if that would be acceptable.

We recently built an extension with a vaulted ceiling, so had different trusses than yours, but the plastering was the other area that is different than a flat ceiling as it takes longer. Our plasterer had to use a small scaffold tower so there's an additional cost.

Ah thanks @PragmaticWench for sharing your experience! That’s v helpful 😊

@Chumleymouse, just seen your message. 😟 We are not planning on removing the supports. I know the trusses are not v nice at the moment, but perhaps we can hide the sopped ones (plasterboard them etc) and then pain/stain the rest. Do you think that’s not feasible?

We had a vaulted ceiling in our master bedroom with a velux window and a huge chandelier (filled the back of a discovery). It was my favourite room in the whole house, so big and airy and the chandelier made the ceiling sparkle when the light through the velux hit it. We did need 2 large radiators though.

What your thinking of can be done, but the amount of labour it will cost to nog/frame it out , solid insulation board and plasterboard might put you off. It will be incredibly time consuming to work in between the trusses.

Plus I’m not sure the building inspector would let you remove the ceiling brace.

When you work out the amount of cost it will take to do all this I think it wouldn’t be that much more to remove the roof and get a joiner to put a cut roof on ( it’s a simple job). The finished room will look a lot better, but it all comes down to the cost really and how much you would like to spend?

It sounds like a big job removing a roof but that’s what I would do if it was ours 👍

Thanks so much @Chumleymouse for the reply! Clearly I will need to get this quoted properly first and see if it’s worth the cost! Stupid question: what’s the ceiling brace? 🙈

The price of wood in the picture that is just above the ceiling that runs the whole length of the garage, if you take in off you will be able to move ( wobble ) the bits that go across with your hand.

Plus if you do remove the roof you will be able to have larger velux in as you can design the roof the fit them , as it is you will only be able to have the narrowest ones in if the trusses are 600 centres ( it looks like they are ).👍

Thanks @Chumleymouse for the detailed reply. To replace a whole ceiling we will need access from the neighbours garden (garage part of the boundary. I will need to discuss the details with a builder first to see what we can do with what we have and also if we can afford it after all!

We did this year’s ago when we converted the garage, worked really well and adds a lot to the feeling of space . We boarded out one end to give storage space which is open but could have doors.

Currently it’s a mess and used for storage but it has made a nice room when tidy and we are considering applying for planning to attach to house via a porch, put French doors onto a patio and use as a bedroom.

Thanks so much @FoolsAssassin for the reply! Sounds like the way to go. Any chance you can post/pm a pic of just the ceiling please? Just trying to visualise what it could look like! Thanks

I thought you might say that 😀 ceiling stuffed full of things at the moment so hard to get an idea but will try later. Will have a look just in case have any old photos.

We did it in our son's bedroom. Looks great and makes the room look much larger. We fitted the remote controlled velux blinds which lets us black it out properly.

@headintheproverbial, sounds amazing. Any chance you can share a pic please? 😊

Had a look and found some old photos which aren’t much help really. One sort of shows the end storage, the other just a tiny glimpse of part of the roof. We’ve put things over the rafters to store stuff so it’s hard to even see the window at the moment.

It did once look nice and somewhere has a nice big light hanging from it. Really must sort it out as seeing when it looked halfway decent reminds me of how it could be.

@FoolsAssassin, thanks so much for sharing the pics. Very helpful!