993inNC

Go as thick as you can for the wall, and instead of using regular insulation there, use a sound deadening insulation (much more dense stuff). Everywhere else you can get away with regular "batt" insulation (and I certainly would not skip this step especially with the low ceiling). It'll help with sound and keep the inside temps more constant. I did it through my entire house (original construction and addition) and I love it. Each room is so much more isolated and with much less echo (even with hard floor coverings)

nile13

One more question after looking at hardwoods yesterday.

We really like the look of the hand-scraped wood. But most of the hand-scraped stuff we've seen is dark for some reason. Found just the right color yesterday - Robbins by Armstrong, stained maple: http://www.armstrong.com/flooring/ha...loor-87246.asp It is, however, engineered wood, 1/2" with only about 3mm wear surface. Is that enough? Or should we continue looking for something thicker? Lumber Liquidators have beautiful inexpensive 3/4" real hardwood, but only dark woods in hand-scraped variety or light birch which is way too variable in color for our tastes. Could not find anything else.

Does anyone have any experience with engineered 1/2" stuff, specifically hand-scraped? Can we buy regular unfinished wood and have it hand-scraped after it's installed, or even before installation?

Deadeye

Mike, engineered flooring is very stable and usually less $ than 3/4" thick wood. It is, however,impossible or very difficult to re-finish. If at all possible buy pre-finished flooring, scraping, staining, finish can get very expensive.

993inNC

I agree with the first statement, but not the second ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The engineered wood is great. I have it in my house and it wears (or should I say doesn't) a lot better than "real" solid unfinished hw. If you are going over a concrete surface, 1/2" is thick, 3/8" is better. The finish on those engineer woods are bullet proof compared to field finished wood (I've had both).
As for the future refinish, A) its unlikely - see above comment B) there is enough top wood to sand down and finish at least once, but it'll never be like the factory finish look.

I just bought a 9/16" x7 1/2"x 8' natural maple from one of those liquidator place along with a beautiful mahogany 9/16 x 2 1/4" x14" for our Master bedroom, hope to have it down this week. Great looking stuff and only paid $1.99 for the maple and $.59 for the mahogany. Both engineered and US made! The mahogany is without a tongue which is why it was so cheap, but I'm gluing down and can spline it so should be a problem. One whole box that I bought for a border cost me $11.00!! Should have done the entire room in it for that cheap!

nile13

Thanks, guys!

I think we might not need to refinish for a long time, although refinishing hand-scraped wavy hardwood is a bit of a mystery to me in the first place. there are, apparently, some newer floating heads that can do it, so if it needs to be done and we can do it at least once in the future, that sounds OK to me.

BTW, the cheapest I've found this Armstrong Robbins stuff is $5.39 per square foot. Everyone else sells it for $6.85 and above. I'd love to find a non-brand name equivalent, but don;t see anything similar in the right color. Chris, could you PM me where you bought yours so I can see what they have? Dennis, if you have any suggestions on hardwood places in MA, I'd love to hear them too.

993inNC

I don't think the place I got mine is a chain Mike. I know its not "Lumber Liquidators" I'll look at my receipt, but I think its more of a local thing. If not I'll send you a name

Deadeye

The largest and best source for hardwood flooring in our area filed for bankruptcy last year. I still haven't found a new source yet that is consistently better in quality or price.

nile13

I think I'll end up mail-ordering the hardwood. Looked around all day and found a couple interesting hand-scraped ones, namely LM Flooring like this: http://lmflooring.com/collection_new.cfm?collection=3 (Maple Burnished or Maple Topaz)
suspiciously inexpensive Jasper like this: http://flooring.builddirect.com/Engi..._10068967.aspx
and several Armstrong products.

993inNC

okay Mike, the guys I bought from are:

midatlanticliquidators.com and Doug is the guy I dealt with.

Flying Finn

Why would you want to cover those beams and make a flat ceiling??!?!

Are they concrete? What material is the ceiling between them? Also concrete?

In any case, leave them "open" so that you can see them. This will not only add height & space but will also make for much more interesting ceiling than just flat ceiling.
If needed, you can cover everything but do not make it flat. If you have HVAC ducts that you need to have, leave them exposed!

With lighting, you can create interesting shapes, shadows etc. when you have elements like this. Wire lighting is an interesting, low cost option and with the interesting ceiling (with those beams), you should light UP and down, not only down as this will create those interesting shadows etc. and indirect light is in general, better.
Also, you can & should have some wall sconces that light up and down.
Or you can put lighting on side of the beams, shooting horizontally.

In principle, use indirect lighting as much as possible, have some lights "washing" the brick walls as brick wall is easy and very interesting surface to light up.

I would absolutely not make a lowered, flat ceiling in your case, you'll end up with much less "space" and less interesting ceiling.

You have interesting elements, brick wall & ceiling with beams, take advantage of them, DO NOT hide them, but instead, showcase them with lighting.
Below are some photos I found on-line that give you an idea of what I'm trying to say.

nile13

Chris, thanks for the URL, I'll try them.

Petu, I completely agree - I don't want to cover the beams, no way. They are the reason we bought this place. The problem is, they are hanging very low. So I can touch them without getting off my flat feet and I'm only about 5'9".

The question, than, is how to light the place to give it appearance of more height. At this point I can see some wall scones shining vertically up like your second picture (or are they built into the floor?). Plus several tracks up on top, maybe with little pendant lights hanging off them. That's where i need all the help I can get with ideas and pictures.

More natural light is not possible - there are windows on the short sides of the unit, the rest are internal walls and it's the third floor of a 5-story building.

We have the fire suppression pipes plus other pipes running inside, they can not be hidden. They will probably be painted black to look at home with exposed brick and natural stripped beams (provided we can strip the brick, right now the estimates are running $10-15K for that and we can't do sand blasting).

To give you an idea, the place looked like this when we bought it:

Flying Finn

Mike,

Good to hear you're not covering the beams.

In general, when you light the room from down (floor), rather than from up (ceiling), you'll create the appearance of more height.

I would put wall sconces that light up & down on both sides of the door and windows, about the height of your eye level.

Then along the brick wall, I would put up-lights on the floor by either recessing them into the floor or getting spotlights that are to be mounted on the wall and have an arm so that they stick out a little (4-5"). Mount them maybe a foot or little less from the floor (but high enough that so that you can run a vacuum clear under them). Space them maybe 2 feet apart and definitely have them on dimmer.

This wall, and it's a nice thing that it has that chimney(?) in an angle, will be your "WOW FACTOR" when you have bare brick and it will be illuminated by those wall washers from below. It will look spectacular and will "make the space".

Basically I'd put everything on dimmer, especially if you use halogen.
If your budget allows, use L.E.D lights, they last forever and generate less heat.

Between the beams, I would have L.E.D. strip lights or some very compact spotlights lighting horizontally.

Then wire lights to the areas where you need downlighting, for example over the dining table, coffee table etc. but other than those areas, I would try avoid downlights.

Without lay-out it's little difficult to do a proper lighting design but this should work as a good guide in principle.

Petu

cfdarch

why isn' your architect answering the questions?

cheers cary

993inNC

Flying Finn

Mike,

One more thing: If you get that brick stripped (worth the $10-15K IMO), how about if you cover the sprinkler pipes etc. with copper or brass pipe? Painting them black is good but covering them with brass would look great.
(You could get thin wall copper pipe, cut it longitudinally on one side and then "spread" so that you can mount it to cover the existing pipe).