ᐅ Ideas for Cladding a Concrete Beam – Gallery

Hello everyone,

I have a slightly awkward situation in the gallery area of our house. We installed a gallery in the attic space. A prefabricated wooden element was built between two reinforced concrete beams. Unfortunately, the reinforced concrete beam is higher than the floor structure. On the prefabricated wooden floor there is a carpet as the floor covering, and on the concrete beam a steel profile was installed as a railing, which holds the glass panels. Now I would like to furnish the gallery, and for that, I need to somehow cover this awkward transition (see picture).

My initial idea is to build some kind of substructure to lay something on top. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to nicely cover the edge. Otherwise, I would simply install parquet flooring on the substructure. Or perhaps fill with screed and then use tile flooring?

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks a lot and best regards!

That really doesn’t look very nice. I assume we would turn this into a feature and design a mosaic for the edge, covering the part that will be walked on with stone or wood. Will the carpet remain?

Actually, yes. It’s basically just a sofa for watching TV and a TV stand or mount.

For a TV room, it’s a good idea to decorate the strip like a film reel. The area where you won’t walk gets two strips as a frame and a glass cover with corresponding print—possibly even backlit.

Do you watch motorsports? A slot car track with race cars is easy to install.

Star Wars fan? Create a display track for models on the strip.

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You only need to make the walking area stable—a carpeted step would be the simplest, a wooden step is also easy.

Turn it into a feature for the TV room—that’s my idea.

Wood battens around the corner including the steel from the railing, then you can put whatever you like on it. Personally, I would go with wood. This way, the edge (which would also look quite good with mosaic tiles and LED strips) disappears, and – which I find much more important – the visually unappealing screw connections.

If the wooden blocks can still be shifted inward or a plate of the same height can be glued on, then I would also cover this beam with carpet. If you are more creative, you could use mosaic, mirrors, wood, or just repair the edge and leave the concrete as is.