Probably the least considered area of our homes, the ceiling is often ignored, or at best simply painted white - but it has potential for introducing colour and decoration, can contribute to the mood of a room, or make it feel larger or smaller. Choose from these simple ceiling ideas to make the most of this untapped potential.
Bear Grylls//Digital Spy
Contrasting colours
These can create an exotic or bohemian look and work best in larger rooms with contrasting colours playing off each other such as the muddy, deep mauve with green ceiling, or the pretty pastel blue ceiling with ointment pink walls shown above. These combinations are brave decorating choices and not always easy to get right. Make it easier by painting pieces of A3 paper with your chosen colours and move them round the room over the course of the day before you decide. In a high-ceilinged room you can make the ceiling feel lower and the room more intimate by bringing a contrasting ceiling colour down to the picture rail.
Bear Grylls//Digital Spy
Beams
Historically most older country houses with beamed ceilings have the woodwork left natural in warm wood tones or are commonly stained dark brown. This is actually often a Victorian update to older properties, so you may not feel tied to keeping them this way. Black and white beams are contrasting to the eye and can create a restless feeling in a room . Think about stripping or perhaps sandblasting them for a much lighter, matt finish.* Alternatively they could be treated with lime to lighten and bring out the grain or painted with an eggshell paint finish, or painted in the same colour as the ceiling. Painting both the beams and the ceiling all white, or off-white is a good choice, or try cream beams on a white or off-white ceiling. Grey beams also look good on an off-white ceiling. Other colours which can be effective for painted beams are soft, grey-greens, sagey tones, or softer grey/blues for an affinity with the sky. Try Farrow & Ball for great colours.
Bear Grylls//Digital Spy
Taking a wall colour up onto the ceiling
Painting the walls in a room in a colour, then carrying this up over the whole ceiling can have a warm and cocooning feel. It can work particularly well in bedrooms that have pitched ceiling where the join between a wall colour and a different ceiling shade can look odd, or in a smaller room like a study or even a hallway. Choose the colour with care or the room can become seamless and slightly tardis-like or perhaps very dark. The best colours to choose for this are soft, receding pale tones. A very soft plaster pink, cool, silvery grey or calm blue or green. In a really dark small space - perhaps a hall with little or no natural light you can opt for a darker shade over both walls and ceiling with success.
Bear Grylls//Digital Spy
Darker ceilings
Painting the ceiling a darker colour than the walls can make a room feel much more spacious and elongated. Choose a soft, paler grey or a soft blue, but avoid dark colours which can make the room feel heavy and imbalanced - rather than grounded and secure.
Bear Grylls//Digital Spy
Wooden cladding and finishes
Wooden-clad ceilings like tongue and groove, more conventionally used on wainscot-panelling can also look lovely on ceilings. In the image above, blonded, wide wooden-planking with a slightly rough finish has been used on the ceiling of a converted agricultural building in Wiltshire, owned by proprietors of Neptune. They sell a product, Isoguard for protecting and lightening wood - and the result is organic and appealing with an alpine quality.
* Remember, if you have listed property this may not be permissable
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