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Reply to: IRC R501.3 Fire protection of floors. Floor assemblies, not required elsewhere in this code to be fire-resistance rated, shall be provided with a 1/2-inch (12.7 mm) gypsum wallboard membrane, 5/8-inch (16 mm) wood structural panel membrane, or equivalent on the underside of the floor framing member. Exceptions: 1. Floor assemblies located directly over a space protected by an automatic sprinkler system in accordance with Section P2904, NFPA13D, or other approved equivalent sprinkler system. 2. Floor assemblies located directly over a crawl space not intended for storage or fuel-fired appliances. 3. Portions of floor assemblies can be unprotected when complying with the following: 3.1. The aggregate area of the unprotected portions shall not exceed 80 square feet per story 3.2. Fire blocking in accordance with Section R302.11.1 shall be installed along the perimeter of the unprotected portion to separate the unprotected portion from the remainder of the floor assembly. 4. Wood floor assemblies using dimension lumber or structural composite lumber equal to or greater than 2-inch by 10-inch (50.8 mm by 254 mm) nominal dimension, or other approved floor assemblies demonstrating equivalent fire performance. http://publicecodes.cyberregs.com/icod/irc/2012/icod_irc_2012_5_sec001.htm

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Reply to: Before anything let's pay attention to the building and fire code requirements and also if there is any local restrictions in place. Building code requires that wood used as an interior finish material meet flame-spread requirements. Wood joists, 16 inches on center rating is 10 minutes and for 1/2" sheetrock is 15 minutes. according to Component Additive Method (CAM) for Calculating and Demonstrating Assembly Fire Endurance, Design for Code Acceptance 4, American Wood Council, www.awc.org. So you have 25 min with sheetrock before floor failure and you have 10 min without sheetrock under normal fire spread. Other than that even if you can leave that exposed, only very few who can find inspiration in it. I can see this being a barn style home, or a loft with 12'-16' ceilings, or a cabin in the middle of nowhere or something commercial yes, but me personally looking at something like this every day, I just don't see any attraction in it. With that being said, that ceiling will always be a dust attraction, and if you have second floor, each time someone walks up, etc not only it will be noisy, you will have dust particles being released from wood and flow around all over the place... IMO to have something exposed in a living area creates unhealthy environment. Good luck.

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Reply to: Ok, I just got a new phone and tried taking a panoramic. Here it is. There are no problems with dust but I do hear very clearly when someone is in the upstairs room. I just don't care too much about noises like that...I kind of like it.

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Reply to: Yes I did :) i cleaned it well. Room still needs some figuring out...going for the industrial look but i am excited to be planning it :) last night I attempted to make pipe nightstands only to realize how expensive pipes are!

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Reply to: just make sure you have privacy from above. we have wide spaces between our floorboards. we can see the basement light left on in the library and dining room....and if we didnt have plaster ceilings we'd see between floors up higher, too.

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