Soffit Construction

Perhaps showing my ignorance of framing, each section of the soffit was framed as one piece on the floor. Then, each section was lifted into place and screwed to the floor joists and wall studs. The photo shows one of the soffit sections (inside the white oval area) screwed in place. In hindsight, assembling the soffit piece by piece on the ceiling would likely have been easier, but I was not "smart" enough to do it that way. Also, note in the photo that the walls have insulation installed, but the ceiling does not (yet). The recessed (incandescent) lighting back cans were installed very early. I did not consider adding additional sound isolation backer boxes at the time, which might have improved sound isolation. At the time, I thought the metal housing of the recessed light would provide enough isolation. Few, if any, LED ceiling lights were available at the time of this build, so incandescent recessed lights were used.

Here's another picture of the soffit and ceiling. This photo, taken a bit later, shows all the fiberglass insulation installed. The temporarily hung recessed light dangles down. It features a dark bronze finish, in keeping with the idea of avoiding light colors throughout the room.

This photograph depicts the installation of the first layer of drywall on the soffit ceiling and walls. The subsequent layer, featuring one side coated in green glue, will be applied later; however, I did not take a photo of that step. The wood strip at the bottom of the soffit creates a tray for placing rope or strip lighting. This lighting aims to provide low-level indirect illumination along the ceiling's edge. Additionally, a 2x4 positioned beneath the soffit will eventually have several molding pieces added to it.

This is a view from inside the rope light tray that is part of the soffit. The inset image at the upper right shows a similar view with the rope light installed (it's simply placed in the tray). The soffit and light tray contains several minor flaws. The tray's overall width, including the 2x4 and molding, measures approximately 6 inches, which is considerably more than required. The tray itself is about 3 inches wide but doesn't need to exceed 1 inch. Initially, I intended to attach the rope lights to the drywall neatly using some brackets that came with the lights; however, they proved ineffective. Since keeping the lights perfectly aligned in the tray wasn't essential, I decided to lay them down without any attachments.

In this photo, the soffit construction has been complete, and the molding has been attached to the 2x4 and the bottom corner of the soffit. The blue masking tape along the top of the molding is used to prevent paint drips from falling on it. The next step is to stain and finish the molding. The inset image at the bottom of the photo shows a close-up of the finished molding on the outside of the soffit's tray.