Real style through false ceilings

Venkat Subramanian

False ceilings can increase the aesthetic appeal of any room be it the kitchen or kids’ room or a modernistic  living room

Every corner of your home defines a part of your personality through the designs, colours and artifacts in that space. Classical, contemporary, modern or futuristic — the layout of your home, the kind of furniture, the kind of designs and textures on the walls and floor all talk of who you are.

There were times when people overlooked the importance of styling their ceilings, and rather focused on the beautification of the walls and floor tiling. Today, with a wide range of designs that false ceilings offer, households feel spoilt with choice and find false ceilings an imperative part of a house makeover.

Designer touch

Ceilings as a design element offer the maximum unobstructed view of any interior space. False ceilings can offer a definitive look and feel to your rooms and build the right ambience as per your taste. With a wide array of designs options, false ceilings can enhance the décor of any room. Apart from stunning aesthetics, they offer functional benefits of thermal and sound insulation, better light reflectance and facilitate concealed and diffused lighting options.

False ceiling is a secondary ceiling which is suspended close to the main ceiling structure using a metal framing structure. These can be finished in different materials like gypsum plasterboard, which provides a seamless finish and can be shaped to give attractive design options which make the space come alive.

Plasterboards are also extremely fast and easy to install. A false ceiling using gypsum plasterboard is very easy to install. It takes approximately one week to do a plain false ceiling and anywhere from 1-2 weeks for designer false ceilings depending on the complexity. So a false ceiling can be installed in as much time or faster than a paint job. False ceilings are also cost effective and offer a great value for money.

— The writer is Managing Director, Saint-Gobain India Pvt.Ltd.

BOX

Aesthetics:

n Contemporary décor and designer look for your homes.

n Seamless and elegant smooth finish (you will not have any of waviness and uneven finish which you get with plastered surfaces)

n Lighting options: False ceilings in homes can open up a whole world of lighting options both in terms of spot lighting (white lights for reading) and mood lighting (party or relaxed atmosphere).

n Concealment of wires: All the wiring for overhead fixtures like fans, lighting, air conditioning can be easily routed in the gap between the false ceiling and the soffit. This eliminates the crisscrossing of wires on the ceilings being visible and offers a clean and seamless look to your homes.

Performance:

n Energy efficiency: False ceiling creates an air gap between soffit and false ceiling level creating thermal insulation reduce the air volume of the room and hence reduce the air-conditioning load. This in turn reduces the power consumption towards cooling the space.

n Thermal insulation: A very common occurrence in homes with the ceiling above exposed directly to the sun is the heat that comes through the ceiling. False ceiling is an effective way to manage this as the air gap between the soffit and the false ceiling offers thermal insulation that reduces the impact of the exposed sun.

n Impact sound insulation: Sound coming in from the apartment above is also a commonly seen problem in apartment complexes. False ceiling can help reduce this sound by providing an additional insulating surface between your home and the home above.