How to Make a Custom Support Column Wrap

This article provides you the step by step details, with photos, of making your own custom wrap to cover up a support column. I reference a basement remodel project where I beautified several steel support columns.

We completed a remodel project with our unfinished basement, and we added about 2,000 square feet of living space after finish our basement area. Since our basement was such a large open space, we had a main support I-beam running the length of the house, near the center of the open space. This particular I-bean had about 5 steel support columns spaced throughout the space to help support this structural component of the house. Certainly we were not going to remove the I-beams to finish the basement, as they were holding up the floor and house above. And we were able to design our space to have walls along the line of 2 of the support columns so that those columns would be hidden inside of the walls. But the remaining three columns would be in the open space of the billiards room, and I did not want another wall which would close in this nice open space for a game room. So I decided that I would beautify these ugly steel columns with a good look wood detail design.

Now you can purchase pre-fabricated column wraps through some stores, but it can be difficult sometimes to match the standard dimensions of these units. We wanted to gain as much ceiling space as possible, and as such the floor to ceiling height in the column area was about 73”, which is not a common height for pre-fabricated units. In any case, I knew that I wanted to create this piece of work in order to make it a custom centerpiece of the room, and that I could be proud to explain that I made the column myself. So I set out to create my own design.

Fortunately, I am a Mechanical Engineer and I have access to a computer aided drafting tool named AutoCAD whereby I could draw my design thoughts in a three dimensional world long before I started cutting any real wood. This gave me the chance to organize my thoughts and test my design methods to actually see what the end result would look like. And then I could change things over, and over, and over again until I was able to get the proportions and look for the finished product. Now, even though I went through much iteration on the drawing, I still had to make some further adjustments after I had trouble finding some of the material shapes that I wanted to employ in my design. And then I made additional changes along the way because I found that I was going to have too many complex multi-angular cuts to create what I easily had drawn on paper. So I simplified along the way for the purpose of actual construction. It is important when working with your own design to be flexible enough to get to the end product, but still have a finished look that you are pleased to call you own.

As you can see in my drawings, I wanted an eye pleasing column that felt like it had some mass to the overall support, but was not too gaudy. I wanted lines of detail to provide architectural interest to the design. I wanted the base and top of the column to flare out in design to give a sense of weight and support, just like a foot holding up a body, or a hand holding up a ceiling. I wanted the middle of the column to be a bit more slender, with long line of interest to give the appearance of stretching in the middle. And I wanted the middle to recess inward to provide additional architectural detail for the eye to view.