I would do it, particularly the sewer pipe. No one wants to see an exposed sewer pipe, painted or not, running through living space.

If it were me and the pipes were able to be painted e I would paint them with a motif that would fit the whole room. Your space is already cramped by the low ceiling. Think art not pipes.

Btw, does anyone have an opinion whether it's worth boxing the vertical sewer pipe (ornate cast iron, not pvc)? It's inconspicuous, and can be hidden with a tall floor lamp, but I might as well box it ($400 extra) now that the guy is working down there.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if it might look better to "box" in starting at the wall, rather than having 2 feet of higher space between the wall & the start of the soffitt. It would look less random and more intentional.

Thanks. I have thought about it. I agree with you it would look "smoother", but the newly reduced 6'7" ceiling spanning 3 feet rather than just 1 foot would be the first thing you would face when entering the room. (The adjacent basement room has 8' ceiling).

Anonymous wrote:Box it in and paint it. Looks a million times better/cleaner than exposed/painted pipes. We just did it in our basement and it looks fine. Not intrusive at all but it looks neat and finished.

Thanks. May I ask how tall your ceiling is? As others alluded to, the relatively low ceiling (7') adds to my reluctance to embrace the soffit idea.

I wonder if it might look better to "box" in starting at the wall, rather than having 2 feet of higher space between the wall & the start of the soffitt. It would look less random and more intentional.

Interesting that opinions are equally divided. Not too common in this forum.

Box it in and paint it. Looks a million times better/cleaner than exposed/painted pipes. We just did it in our basement and it looks fine. Not intrusive at all but it looks neat and finished.

Anonymous wrote:keep soffits on low basement ceiling to the interior side.

Do you mean, farthest from an exterior door/window?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough call. Given the already low ceiling, not inclined to add any additional obstacles. Are the pipes near the wall, or would this soffit being running across the middle of the room?

The pipes are couple of feet away from a wall. So it would be the wall, then 2 feet of 7' ceiling, then one foot of soffit (extending down about 5 inches, so the ceiling would be 6'7" for that one foot, and then again 7' ceiling for about 8 feet until hitting the opposite wall.

The other issue is that, if the soffit is built, once you open the suite door it will be the first thing you see.

I think the soffits will be more of an intrusion than the pipes. Paint and be done.

keep soffits on low basement ceiling to the interior side.

Anonymous wrote:Seven foot ceiling is already low, I don't think it will help resale to lower it dirtier, even a few inches for soffit. It's going to feel awkward to a tall man.

Even if the soffit is just one foot wide?

Box and leave an access point in case.

Seven foot ceiling is already low, I don't think it will help resale to lower it dirtier, even a few inches for soffit. It's going to feel awkward to a tall man.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting PP. I faced a similar dilemma but our ceilings were definitely too low for a box (prob 7' ceiling). We ended up rerouting the pipe so it was higher at a cost of $2k (!!) I did NOT want to do it-- I thought it was a waste of money and would have been happy to just paint it white and be done with it, but DH wanted to.

OP here. Thanks. Our ceiling is actually 7' as well. I think we can make a very small box -- one foot wide, projection down only 5 inches. Did rerouting the pipes make a big difference visually? I can't picture whether it will in our case -- i.e. Whether a small box will be a big improvement over just painting them white. That's why I am curious about the resale aspect of this.

Ours was a different situation bc the room was unfinished and there was this one pipe that was lower than everything else in the ceiling for some reason. Had we not rerouted the pipe, they would have just finished the ceiling off at the higher point and left the pipe out and painted it white (which would have been fine with me!)

I will say that there's another part of our basement already finished that has a soffitt that probably has plumbing in it (it was like that when we moved in). It does look a little strange to have this random box on the ceiling (probably similar height to yours-- a few inches), particularly bc the basement ceiling is already low. OTOH.....it's a basement. It's a finished space and looks 1000x nicer than most of the basements I've seen. I can't imagine that this soffitt will affect resale at all.

In my case, DH is sort of anal about details so he wanted to reroute the pipe. At the end of the day, I think we were totally fleeced by the plumber and could have gotten it moved much more cheaply (although not for cheaper than building the soffitt).

I would google or look on houzz for "basement soffits" and see what you think of the pictures.