Hi all - fell across this forum by accident - then realised it's mainly gardening orientated but perhaps some kind person may be able to help. I'm involved with our local sports Club and we have been running our Social Clubhouse for over 30 years.The building has quite high ceilings with four plastered beams across the building. In the daylight it looks more like a "Hall" although when we have a function in progress i.e lights dimmed and plenty of people it creates quite a good atmosphere.In the daylight when it's empty it looks a bit stark. We have had the place completely redecorated with a new bar surround. We are trying to give the place more of a lounge type atmosphere but the high ceilings make it difficult.We have looked into the possibility of a suspended ceiling but we have more urgent ways of spending funds. At Christmas when the decorations are up it does certainly make a difference. I'm just wondering if anyone can suggest a cost effective way of solving the problem. I had thought of perhaps suspending a close mesh netting type material but don't know if anything like this is commercially available.Each "bay" in the ceiling between beams is approximately 20ft x 10ft and there are five bays.Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. moderator's note: added a more descriptive title to topic
Five large lighting fixtures suspended from the ceiling, one in each bay. You don't have to have chandeliers like Versailles, but large fixtures, preferably on dimmer switches. The eye stops at the fixture, and doesn't travel on up to the ceiling, giving the impression of a lower ceiling when actually everything is the same. Circular fixtures would work best I think, given the "lounge" effect you are after.
That sounds a good idea. At the moment the "house lights" consist of three sets of "naff" spotlight type fittings (with three lights on each) spaced evenly across each bay.That makes a total of 15 fittings and 45 lights.What we need to do then would be to replace these with suspended light fittings so they are at the same level as the bottoms of the cross beams. We also have uplighters around the clubroom fixed on the pillars supporting the cross beams which are the only lights in use when we have a function.
