Creating a Coffered Ceiling With Chamfer Bead

With its crisp lines and stark shadows — creating a softer look than the sharp angle of a 90-degree corner — Chamfer Bead is a favorite design choice among both drywall finishers and interior designers. A perfectly executed coffered ceiling, meanwhile, can single-handedly take a room from humdrum to elegant. Combine these two design choices into one ceiling detail, creating a coffered ceiling with Chamfer Bead, and you’ve got a room worth bragging about.

And that’s exactly what the drywall pros at Gary Johnston’s Plastering & Drywall did. We recently visited a custom home build they were working on in Naperville, Ill., where they were in the middle of creating a dining room ceiling that will be sure to wow their client.

As you can see, this ceiling design breaks up the area into four square, sunken quadrants, adding an interesting texture to the room. Unless you’re working with a massive room with extra-high ceilings, some coffered ceilings with deep sunken panels can actually make a room look smaller. Here, we’re only talking about a slight step down — just enough to accommodate our wider Chamfer Bead’s 1 ⅛” edge — so we get all the benefits of a coffered look without noticeably lowering the height of our room.