Hi, I hope you can help me out here. My husband and I are building a family room down in our basement. Here is our problem. We have to put in a dropped ceiling. The problem is that the top of our basement windows are at a higher level than the height of the dropped ceiling. We don't know how to go about doing this. Please help! We are at this point today and don't know how to work around the windows. Thanks!!!

 

Many of us who have drop ceilings in our basements have run into this problem. I just finished my basement a few months ago. This is what I did, my ceiling hung down abount 4" below the window top. Basically you build a reverse window well around the inside of the window. Build it out of 1" x ?? wood, plan on coming down from the floor joists above, come down maybe a 1/2" below or flush with the dropped ceiling runners. Hang your ceiling first, just don't put up the edge runners over the window opening or the panels in that area. Now if you have a partial ceiling panel width on that side of your basement, which you probably do in order to center your ceiling across the basement, build the reverse window well out to the first main runner going across in front of the window. The width will of course match the window or the whatever you are doing inside around the window. Build & put up this window well frame, then put up the edge runners around it, then cut your panels to fit around it. On the inside of the well, put whatever you like mounted directly against the floor joists or furred out some to match the top of the window, use plywood or another ceiling panel. You can either paint or stain the wood to match the rest of your trim. You can also look on the web site provided by Dave Schrock (www.basementideas.com) for some pictures, he has some nice looking projects. Previous posts on this forum (last spring) have also dealt with this issue.

Good Luck.

 

Another idea for a different appearance is to angle the drop from above the window down to the first runner which also works well to keep the head hieght at the bottom of a set of basement stairs. Attach the wall molding up the sides and around the top of the window. A piece of main runner at the top suspended with wire can make things easier.(The plastic wall molding for the type of tile cieling with snap moldings works well for a staircase well) Cut wall molding to go from the bottom of the window wall molding to the first main runnner and face the outside edge towards the window opening. Cut to length wall molding to go from the top of the window to the first main runner to the inside of the other bottom piece. Face the top piece so the inside corner is towards the window opening. Cut the sides from the top piece so you can bend the section to fit flush inside the main runner. Cut a tile to the angle of the sides. Place the angled sides first and drive a screw through the molding, through the tile and into a block of wood. The bottom of the sides will be locked in by the next tile set in next to it. Place the top tile and rivet it all in place. If you think a picture is worth more than words.. feel free to send me an email. These pictures are of the bottom of a stairwell however it is the same type installation.