Hello, everyone.

We've been doing some construction on our house, and I have a question for you.
We've knocked down a bearing wall, placed a really thick beam, and now I'm
trying to dress up the beam so SWMBO doesn't mind looking at it. The
surrounding trim is just stained pine, but I was hoping to go a different route
with this. I was hoping to laminate some sort of wood onto it, but wasn't sure
what would look best.

The beam's dimensions are 12ft 4in long, 5 1/2 in deep, and hangs 8 1/4 in from
the ceiling, which is textured plaster.

Keep in mind I don't have a bandsaw, so I won't be able to resaw. I was
thinking of using 3/4 inch material cut to size. Also, I know that I'll need
some pretty big pieces as I want the laminated beam to look like a single
piece, rather than like a beam with a bunch of different pieces of wood glued
to it.

So, anybody have some good species of wood in mind??

Thanks a bunch.

-Barry