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Framing interior open soffit

bdey01 | Posted in Construction Techniques on February 23, 2011 02:26am

I am in the process of reframing the outside walls of my entire home as I  replace all the old windows, reinsulate, and resheath the walls.  The old drywall on the interior side of these outside walls is now gone, and I see now as the perfect time to see about adding the framing necessary to allow for open interior soffits.  My desire would be for these to be 2 to 3 feet wide, have regularly spaced recessed lighting, as well as continuous lighting facing the ceiling to create a softer glow.  I am looking to create something like as seen in the living room of Frank Lloyd Wrights Boswell Home (see photo below).

The soffits shown in the image are an extension of the exterior soffit into the interior space, and are supported by the roof and wall framing.  However, I have the disadvantage of not being able to extend the framing beyond the outside walls to counterbalance the cantilevered interior soffit, as my soffits would be at the 7 foot high level, and my existing roof soffits are at 8 feet.  I also want to restrict any sort of vertical support members, making the soffit look like it is floating into the interior space.  Dealing with shorter, 12-14 foot walls wouldn’t be that big a deals, as the side walls where the soffit would terminate would support the very lightweight framing, drywall, and eletrical.  My problem arises in my living room which is 33 feet long.  How would I tackle this given the desire to not have vertical support either below or down from the current ceiling above?

Thanks.

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  1. cussnu2 | Feb 23, 2011 02:52pm | #1

    I think you are going to have to make your soffits deeper than what these appear to be and then you are going to have to support from above in the middle or perhaps at 1/3 of the soffit where the depth will hide it.  Given your length, you might still have a probelm with being able to get an angle that shows the supports  In which case, you could drywall the vertical supports and place the lighting in front of it such that your eye would have a hard time deciphering the difference in depth between the actual wall and the false wall.  You are probably going to need to think about depth anyway to make sure you can't  see the cans do to the extreme angle you can get at on a 33' wall.

    You might also be able to do so by angling supports from the top of the wall to a point along the soffit "joists" that would again give the illusion of no support

    1. bdey01 | Feb 23, 2011 03:24pm | #2

      What about this

      Would it be possible to make the rungs of the ladder framing of the soffit 3.5" longer on the end that faces the wall, and then have them nailed on to the wall studs, and then add an L-shaped gusset plate that would be hidden in the wall that would be fixed on the top end with some blocking in the wall cavity.  The leg of the L could be as long as needed to help support the cantilevered beam. 

      Another idea would be to use a 8" or 12" steel L-bracket (used to support shelves), but turn in upside down so that instead up pushing the cantilever up, it would be pulling the beam up.  Or I could just recess it in the wall and put it below the beam. 

      And as for using recessed lights in cans, I was probably going to just make a square hole that was open on both the top and bottom, mound a simple light recepticle on its side in the box, stick in a cf bulb, cover the bottom with a frosted piece of lexan, and leave the top open to bathe the ceiling with light, thereby doing away with the need for the rope lighting and allowing the soffit to be kept to 3" to 5" range in thickness.

  2. frost | Feb 23, 2011 03:25pm | #3

    I'd be thinking about light weight metal studs for the frame, thin drywall (half inch or less) and  some cable spaced every 8-10 feet  or so.  Cable could rise vertically or maybe back towards the top wall plate.  Could  begin by spec'ing out the light fixtures  and using that info to determine the depth/thickness of the soffitt.  You might think about closing in the top side for the occassional cleaning or dusting.  If it can't be seen, maybe  1/8 th inch ply would suffice for weight purposes.  No chinup bars added to the outer edges, no teenagers allowed in the room without supervision!!

    I'd love to see pictures when done.

  3. DanH | Feb 23, 2011 09:55pm | #4

    Cable/rod stays about every 4 feet, set in 18-24 inches -- just far enough out to support the cantilever.  And the suggestion to use metal studs is a good one, but don't use the really lightweight stuff.

    1. arcflash | Mar 06, 2011 12:53pm | #5

      No cables, just swaybraces behind the cantilever. I thought about doing the same thing at my house. and was able to find a framing blueprint detail from a job I was on that had that soffit detail EVERYwhere. I didnt get to stick around to see the finish, but the rough framing is simple enough. Just build a regular box soffit only cantilever the bottom of it out a foot or so. The detail showed trim at the end of the cantilever to hide the lights, but I'm sure you could get as creative as you wanted to. The guys framing them used light gauge steel and just put swaybraces in the soffit every six feet or so.

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