Living Room Ceiling Updates, Part I

Add installing crown molding on a ceiling beam to the already long list of weird stuff our house's previous owner did. This is what the beam in our living room looked like after we took the crown molding down:

After the molding was removed you could see that it wasn't particularly nice wood but it wasn't bad enough to deserve to be painted beige (but really, nothing deserves to be painted beige). There wasn't really any value in trying to strip the paint and sand it to get it back to its natural state, so I painted it chocolate brown to make it look more like real wood from afar. Really you could argue that it looks like real wood from pretty close, too, since I think I picked a color very similar to the one that was uncovered, and the wood was never sanded so it had a really rough grain texture to it still. See how much better it looks already?

Obviously I couldn't wait to get a picture first but I have already started filling in the cracks that were previously covered by the molding with foam insulation so we'll have one less place for air to leak into the attic. Since I intend to put up paneling on the ceiling (as I mentioned previously) it should cover what little of the insulation might still be visible after I trim it. Anyway, painting this beam made a HUGE difference in the feeling of the room and it feels so much more cozy already.

Paint color is Sherwin Williams French Roast