What to do with beams?

[paintitornot]

Recently bought a little grade II listed Tudor cottage which has black beams and white walls in every room. It also has dark oak doors, cupboards and floors with tiny windows. Its gorgeous and I love it but it's a bit dark.

We have been umming and ahhhing about how to make it a bit lighter. We can sand the floorboards (they're very scratched) and white wash them and paint some of the doors a lighter colour but wondering whether to paint any of the beams white?

There are companies that do beams professionally to make them a natural wood colour but they're out of our price range.

Any wise advice mumsnetters?!

Firstly, if you are Grade II listed, you might need to check with the council before doing anything too drastic with the woodwork, particularly if it is actually Tudor.

After that, rather than painting the doors and cupboards, have a look at limewaxing them - will keep the wood finish but make it lighter.

For the beams, the people I would talk to are Potmolen Paints, who know about all sorts of obscure products for wood and might be able to help find ways of making the beams lighter (we have beams in our house but only a few, so it's not as dark as it could be.

Sanding the floors and doing anything with the beams might need listed buildings consent. Might be worth checking with the local conservation officer. They are a bit hit and miss but ours is very nice and does respond to emails.

In a listed building, everything which makes up the fabric of the building is part of the listing, (whether or not it is in the description) including the floors and beams, and if you do anything other than like for like repairs then you can be made to put them back to how they were. I am guessing replacing hundreds of years old timbers would be pretty expensive so I would be careful! Sanding the floors is probably ok but if they have special historic significance then it might need permission. I am guessing in a Tudor house that the beams are likely to be of historic importance so definitely worth checking them before doing anything.

Thanks for your replies! Yes agree about being careful with historic timbers. We're very conscious of not doing anything to negatively affect the building. The floors are fortunately relatively modern (surveyor thinks Victorian) and they're a mess (horrid modern varnish that's all patchy) so I'm comfortable sanding them but I am unsure about the beams. Before I speak to the conservation officer I want to be clear what we would like to do which I'm not!

The building originates from 15/16 century but has had changes over the years so there are some later additions. Some beams are Victorian, others look original. I may just leave them as they are and look into better LED / low energy lighting.

I'll check out the recommendations too! Thanks

In your situation I think the very best you'd be allowed to do with the beams is use some less chemical less physical way to lighten them, that's if you're allowed to touch them at all. It will be £££ to do it properly. It might be the lesser of two evils to accept the natural darkness of this type of property and compensate with additional lighting.

It does beg the question why you bought a listed Tudor cottage if you don't like beams?!
When you buy a historic property like that, you are a guardian more than an owner; please don't ruin it!

Leave the beams! Never touch beams. Wrap them in fairy lights.

There is a frenchic beam hack. You paint the beams white and then add the browning wax over the top. I've not done this myself but heard about it on at Lucys house on insta. She has a video pinned where you can see the results.

Thanks everyone! Just to say I love the beams. My question should probably have been more about how to lighten the rooms a bit.

I previously owned a grade II listed house so know how important preserving the history of a building is. In fact we bought a wreck and reinstated lots of original features all in accordance with the conservation officer. It was a later c1850 house and current house is much older so a different character.

The previous owner painted everything possible in this cottage in black or dark varnish rather than leaving the natural wood. It's lost a bit of its character by being smothered in black paint and thick varnish. I think it was probably to disguise damp before selling as we have discovered a few leaks and now have black paint runs down the freshly painted white plaster walls

I'd like to restore it back a bit more and if I can make it lighter then that's a bonus. I think for now we'll add better lighting and live in it a bit and see how we get on!

My thinking too.

Though there are techniques like how you hang the curtains (if you're having any) so not to cover any window when the curtains are open.

If it's that important to you I'd fork out for the pro back-from-black beam restoration companies. Please don't paint them.

Pale rugs to make flooring brighter? Strategically placed mirrors to bounce light around the room? You can even buy furniture with mirror finish, though that wouldn't be to my taste personally.

Sorry. Didn't realise you had previous experience of listed buildings. If you are stripping the gunk off the beams you could try contacting strippers of Sudbury. They produce chemicals for stripping pretty much anything off of pretty much anything. I have also heard of other people using sand blasting and also ice blasting ( I think it's carbon dioxide or nitrogen?) To remove the surface from old beams.