Carpentry and Woodworking - covering header

I made two small rooms into one big room, we installed a header. I want to cover with a 1x10 pine to stain, I will have a seam in the middle any ideas how i can minimize the seam? (cut At 45 and overlap) or just butt?
Thanks Herbie

It just depends on what sort of look you're going for. If you have to have a seam, overlapping 45's (scarf) will be the least obvious. (And try to match the grain and color of the wood on both sides of your joint.) The best thing is to get trim that is long enough to avoid the seam altogether, but once you get over 16', that begins to get difficult. Or, you could use a thick block of 5/4 pine and make a "keystone" in the middle of your beam, if you like the way that would look, or even break it up with several rectangular 5/4 blocks so that you could use square cuts and shorter pieces. It all depends on whether some sort of design is acceptable, or if you want it to appear seamless or not.

Scarfing works pretty well but you will still the the seam a little bit, depending on the color of the stain. It will be more noticable from one side than the other. Try to make the cut where it will be least visible from the angle which it will be seen the most. :D

Good Luck.