Catalogs always show the same thing: a rectangular garage, a flat ceiling, a nice centered grid. In real life, there's a beam across, a 2.2 m ceiling, an L-shaped room, and a sectional door that goes up to the ceiling.
Good news: the hexagonal grid adapts much better to these cases than aligned strips. Here's how to handle each configuration.
Low ceiling (less than 2.40 m)
The risk is not lack of light, it's glare: at this height, the panels are in the field of vision as soon as you look up.
- Prefer a lower but better distributed density: in a low room, light already diffuses very well on the walls.
- Avoid placing a panel directly above the usual working position, where it will be directly in the line of sight.
- A light-colored ceiling becomes your ally: painted in matte white, it distributes light instead of reflecting it as bright spots.
Beams, joists, partial false ceiling
A beam cuts the grid in two, and that's perfectly fine. Two solutions depending on the configuration:
- Go around: each bay between beams is treated as a small room, with its own density. The result is consistent and the overall effect remains clear.
- Follow: the grid is aligned with the axis of the beams rather than the walls. This provides the cleanest look in old outbuildings.
What not to do: force a large symmetrical pattern over the beams, with half-obscured panels. It immediately looks like it was installed without looking at the ceiling.
L-shaped, U-shaped garage, with a nook
The reflex is to center the grid on the main part and forget the return. The result: a dark corner that becomes a storage area, then a corner that is no longer used.
The right method: divide the room into rectangular zones, calculate each separately at the appropriate density, then connect the zones with grid continuity. A 30 m² L-shaped garage is calculated as a 20 m² plus a 10 m², not as a 30 m² rectangular one.
The garage door: the forgotten constraint
A sectional door goes up horizontally under the ceiling, for 2 to 3 m in depth. Any panel placed in this band will either be hit or obscured when the door is open.
- Open the door completely, mark the plumb line of the rear edge of the door on the floor, and transfer this line to the ceiling.
- Start the grid after this line, with a 10 cm margin.
- An outward-opening up-and-over door requires the same verification, only worse: it sweeps an arc.
Distances to respect
| Situation | Recommended distance |
|---|---|
| Between the last hexagon and a wall | 30 to 40 cm |
| Under a protruding beam | Do not cross: stop the grid |
| Sectional door band | Full travel + 10 cm |
| Around a water point or a CMV | Go around, never cover |
Trace before drilling
The only advice to avoid unpleasant surprises: lay out the entire grid on the floor first, at scale 1, exactly as it will be on the ceiling. You immediately see what doesn't fit, you move it, and only then do you drill.
What to remember
- Low ceiling: less dense, never in the line of sight.
- Beams: go around or follow, never force over them.
- L-shaped room: calculate zone by zone.
- Sectional door: locate its travel before tracing.
View white hexagonal LED kits — modular configurations allow you to compose a grid that follows the actual shape of the room.
