30 ways to decorate a ceiling (with no boring white in sight)
It's all too easy to agonise over paint colours for your house and leave the ceiling as you found it, most likely painted white. However, a ceiling is a wall just like the rest, and deserves serious consideration. ‘Of course in lots of cases a simple off-white paint for a ceiling is great,’ says Emma Burns of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, ‘but you can add another layer to the decoration of a room with a more adventurous choice. I love a gloss ceiling in robin’s egg blue or a butterscotch tone or a wallpaper like Fornasetti’s ‘Clouds’.’ Interior designer Olivia Outred agrees – ‘I am particularly fond of tiled ceilings and high gloss ceilings,’ she says.
If you prefer to experiment with paint before moving on to more permanent options, Farrow & Ball colour consultant Joa Studholme advises that “the choice of colour for the woodwork and the ceiling is just as important as that of the walls. You must think of the room as a whole. A bright white on either ceiling or trim will make the walls look darker as well as making you more aware of where the walls end and the ceiling begins; this causes the ceiling height to drop. Either use a complementary white (something with the same base colour as the walls) or if you are braver use the same colour on the walls, woodwork and ceiling – not nearly as frightening as it sounds!”
For a truly enveloping effect, we adore it when interior designers go full throttle with fabric lined rooms and tented ceilings. Veere Grenney often uses a tented ceiling in projects to ‘add a sense of theatre’, he says, adding ‘it’s not just theatre that it brings. It’s warmth and cosiness and beauty.’ Flora Soames is a great advocate for fabric walls and ceilings, noting that they can create ‘a wonderful, cocoon-like room.’
Paul Massey1/29Nicola Harding is an advocate for painting your ceiling the same colour as the walls and woodwork, a design trick that creates a cocooning effect when you use a strong colour. In this Berkshire house, 'Stone Blue’ paint by Farrow & Ball on the ceiling and built-in bookshelves creates a vibrant background for brass accents.
Simon Brown2/29Le Manach’s ‘Pommes de Pin’ wallpaper from Pierre Frey covers the walls and ceiling of a small lobby and snug off the master bedroom in Samantha Todhunter's country house. The bedroom itself is a serene pale blue, so by wrapping the adjoining small space in this vibrant pattern, the designer has created a colourful haven that contrasts with its peaceful neighbour.
Lucas Allen3/29Elsewhere in the house, a blue ticking fabric covers the ceiling of a bedroom, furthering the blue scheme seen in the Lewis & Wood ‘Jasper Peony’ chinoiserie wallpaper on the walls.
Michael Sinclair4/29Hand-painting a ceiling is not for the faint-hearted, but it can be absolutely spectacular. In this Kensington house, decorator Lucy Hammond Giles commissioned an ivy-wrapped latticework motif for the vaulted ceiling of the basement dining room. Painted by the decorative specialist Magdalena Gordon, of Atma Decorative Arts, it sits above four crescent-shaped slivers of verre églomisé, which give the whole scheme a super sophisticated feel at night.
Alex Lukey5/29The cobalt-lacquered ceiling and wall of mirrors lend a theatrical air to this dining room by Colette van den Thillart and the blue lacquer picks up the watery theme of the wallpapered walls.
Mark Anthony Fox6/29Veere Grenney is a master of the fabric-walled room, and this spare room in a London pied-à-terre he designed is one of the best. With its tented ceiling, it has the feel of one of Napoleon's campaign rooms, and the trim further suggests the Regency period. The upholstered walls and ceiling are in Montauk Stripe, by Le Gracieux from Tissus d’Hélène.
Paul Massey7/29This box bed room in a Laura Stephens project, designed for grandchildren and the odd guest, is a ‘theatrical and whimsical space.’ The wallpaper is from Jim Thompson, paired with Paint & Paper Library's ‘Rhubarb’. Laura asked the decorator to paint a line around the perimeter of the ceiling to make it feel more integrated and tie the scheme together. This small decorative touch to the ceiling makes all the difference.
Paul Massey8/29In the garden office of the same house, Laura asked Eugenia Barrios to hand paint the foliage onto ceiling, cascading down the walls.
Salva Lopez9/29The sitting room of Sergio Roger's apartment in Barcelona has simple, skinny mouldings and a curvaceous Art Nouveau plaster fireplace as a focal point, gathered around which are a mishmash of vintage finds and inherited family pieces.
10/29Painting the ceiling in a strong shade – in this case, ‘Babouche’ by Farrow & Ball – makes an impact in this hallway designed by Olivia Emery for Eildon Hall in the Scottish Borders. ‘It adds warmth and interest,’ explains the interior designer, who has introduced contrast by using ‘Van Courtland Blue’ by Benjamin Moore on the woodwork.
Simon Brown11/29The ceiling in interior designer Beata Heuman’s own kitchen was influenced by those found in traditional cafés in Stockholm and in Copenhagen. Crafted by Dominic Schuster, it is made from individual pieces of glass held in place by antiqued solid brass fretwork. ‘The reflection of the light in the ceiling is lovely, both during the day and at night,’ says Beata.
12/29Thin slats of mahogany complement the subtly geometric details that characterise the dressing room of this London house, which was designed by Shalini Misra. Their lines are picked up in the grid of the mirror glass that conceals the wardrobes, as well as in the ceiling light and the uneven lines of the Berber rug.
© Rachael Smith Photography Ltd13/29In this Dunning & Everard project, the original papier mâché decoration has been painted to give it the look of plasterwork. Specialists such as Stevensons of Norwich can produce bespoke plaster mouldings, or you can buy off the-shelf mouldings from DIY stores like B&Q.
John Bessler14/29Why restrict wallpaper to just the walls? Use it on the ceiling for an easy way to add another layer of pattern to a room. Here, inspired by Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, US design studio Madcap Cottage has used Thibaut’s ‘Majuli Trellis’ in green for the kitchen of their own house.
15/29Pierre Frey’s floral ‘Ispahan’ wallpaper adds interest to this windowless room. David Nastasi, of Swain Street & Co, explains, ‘The slightly shiny finish makes the ceiling feel higher than it is.’
richard@richardpowers.co.uk16/29Reclaimed bricks on the vaulted ceiling of this room, decorated by ODG Interiors, introduces texture to an otherwise neutral space. The custom blind from Cowtan & Tout follows the ceiling’s arch, allowing an unimpeded view.
Trevor Tondro17/29Inspired by the trompe-l’œil tented room at the 15th-century Casa degli Atellani in Milan, the US interior designer Miles Redd created the illusion of fabric on this ceiling using paint. This draws the eye up to the high arches in the space.
Simon Upton18/29Interior designer Hubert Zandberg commissioned Rupert Bevan to make an antiqued mirror panel for the ceiling of this hallway. Combined with the large mirror on the wall, the glass makes the most of the available light in this windowless space and amplifies the warm, inviting glow of the crystal chandelier when illuminated.
19/29A pleasing sense of continuity has been created in this contemporary extension to a Sixties house in County Cork by adding cedar wood detailing to the ceiling as well as to the walls – the beams are identical to those found in the original building. Fentiman Design has used this simple but effective way to bring architectural definition to the bedroom.
20/29‘We have always had a thing about using wallpaper to introduce a frenzy of pattern,’ says Jo leGleud of Maddux Creative. In this attic room, both the ceiling and walls have been papered in Galbraith & Paul’s distinctive ‘Lotus’, with the matching linen fabric used to make the curtain, headboard and bedcover.
21/29‘I wanted to give the dining room a sense of occasion, while adding a sense of height,’ says Richard Smith of Madeaux, who designed this custom wallpaper for his own house in Sussex. The stripes narrow towards a central point, creating an illusion of a fabric-tented ceiling.
Lauryn Ishak22/29The walls of this dining room in a Singapore flat by Elizabeth Hay are covered in a navy blue grasscloth by Stereo. The ceiling has been painted in the same tone to highlight the colour and strengthen its position within the room. At night, when the lights of the chandelier seem to sparkle like stars against the navy beams, the windowless dining room becomes a moonlit chamber. ‘It feels soaring and intimate at the same time,’ says Elizabeth.
Lauryn Ishak23/29‘We wanted it to look like a jewel box, where every room feels like a discovery,' says Elizabeth of the flat. To this end, the sitting room has a lacquered ceiling which makes it feel like an endless space and much loftier than it might be in reality. The blue thread runs through this room too, with a border in the same tone as before to tie everything together.
Lauryn Ishak24/29Thibaut's ‘New Haven Stripe’ wallpaper was added to the faux tented ceiling in the study, creating a workspace that is endlessly inspiring. It contrasts with ‘Pineapple’ wallpaper from Hygge & West on the walls.
Lucas Allen25/29Walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Light Blue’, Valspar’s ‘Platinum Sage’ and Paint & Paper Library’s ‘Marble I’ frame a ceiling papered in Schumacher’s ‘Feather Bloom’ in a London house by Spencer Wedekind. The wallpaper helps create a feeling of a separate area within this open plan space.
26/29This seating area in Gavin Houghton's Tangiers house captures what we love about stripes right now. Taking his cue from the red stripe of the sofa fabric, he decided to mirror the design on the ceiling. Detail on the ceiling is a smart way to add interest to an often neglected part of the room. Leaving the walls white, as Gavin has done here, puts the simple design at centre stage.
John Bessler27/29Every ceiling in the house belonging to the Madcap designers has been exploited as a place for further decoration. In the sunroom, their own ‘Cove End’ fabric extends the green theme.
Romain Ricard28/29Maria Speake designed this children's bedroom with bunk beds. The sloping ceiling and wooden panels create an attic-room feel while accents of blue run throughout.
Sharyn Cairns29/29In the daughter's bedroom of a west London house, the ceiling has been painted to look like a circus tent, using Farrow & Ball's 'Rectory Red' and Paint and Paper Library's 'Slate I'.
