Whenever you’re adorning a room, it’s simple to obsess over what’s overlaying the ground and the partitions. However what in regards to the ceiling?
It not often will get a lot consideration — past a coat of flat, white paint. And that’s a missed alternative.
“To go away the ceiling behind — if you’ve resolved the opposite surfaces in a room — appears not solely unlucky, but additionally throws off the stability,” mentioned the New York designer Steven Gambrel. “If I’ve bought texture on the partitions or materials on the ground that has character, I’m making an attempt to offer that high floor the identical stage of patina — or large distinction.”
The way in which Corey Damen Jenkins, an inside designer in New York, sees it, the ceiling could also be extra essential than the partitions.
“In a room, you normally have six planes — 4 partitions, the ground and the ceiling — however the ceiling is the one airplane that’s unobstructed by art work and furnishings,” mentioned Mr. Jenkins, who isn’t any stranger to creating large statements overhead. “I generally even begin there and work my approach down.”
Embellishing the ceiling is very essential in rooms that friends will see, together with “powder rooms, bars, libraries, eating rooms, locations the place you may be having a cocktail or consuming dinner,” mentioned Fern Santini, a designer primarily based in Austin, Texas. “You are able to do enjoyable issues to create enjoyable rooms which have instantaneous temper.”
We requested a number of designers to stroll us by means of the method, step-by-step.
Make It Reflective
When Mr. Gambrel desires a press release ceiling, he generally provides it a mirror-like end of high-gloss paint. “That, after all, brings in a ton of sunshine, which means that gentle begins to bounce throughout the ceiling,” he mentioned. “It provides a bit polish.”
To realize his desired end, he makes use of a number of coats of ultra-high-gloss Hollandlac enamel from Fantastic Paints of Europe. However as a result of the shiny floor will reveal any imperfections, the ceiling have to be skim coated and sanded completely easy first. Mr. Gambrel has used impartial colours to easily bounce extra gentle round a room, however has additionally created attention-grabbing ceilings in colours like vibrant peachy pink and coral.
Mr. Jenkins achieved an identical look in a eating room with Venetian plaster burnished to a excessive gloss. “It virtually seems to be like a pool of water on the ceiling, the other way up,” he mentioned.
In one other venture, he thought-about mounting antiqued mirror on the ceiling, however when the price range wouldn’t enable it, he used a shiny Cole & Son wallcovering known as Vintage Mirror to attain an identical impact. “I actually wished it for this room,” he mentioned. “The ceiling elevates the entire house.”
Add a Metallic Contact
Including a metallic end to a ceiling may also make it shine. One possibility is to use gold leaf, or another steel leaf, to the drywall, or to make use of a wallcovering with the identical look.
Ms. Santini as soon as used gold-leaf wallpaper from Phillip Jeffries in a main bed room, working it throughout the ceiling and down the highest of the partitions to create an impact like an upside-down tray.
“Gold leaf is only a lovely option to do a ceiling,” she mentioned. “It displays gentle, but it surely’s so mushy. It’s not in your face or too glam.”
Douglas C. Wright, an architect in New York, added pressed tin to the ceiling of a kitchen in Connecticut and left it unpainted — an outdated concept that provides texture and shine.
“We needed to work with a low ceiling, and the tin ceiling displays plenty of gentle,” Mr. Wright mentioned. “It took what was form of a dim, darkish house and made it vivid, heat and comfy.”
Blast It With Sample
Regardless of its identify, wallpaper isn’t only for partitions. Whereas it’s extra generally utilized to vertical surfaces, it’s additionally pleasant on a ceiling.
Mr. Jenkins has designed rooms with wallpapered ceilings that includes elaborate florals, clouds and multicolored marbleized patterns. Ms. Santini as soon as designed a kitchen with a ceiling lined by a swarm of illustrated honeybees, because of wallpaper from Timorous Beasties.
“We might have simply painted it white, and it could have been so boring,” she mentioned. “That is one other layer that makes the room so fascinating.”
In one other home, she did one thing much more elaborate: She lined the ceiling of a library and bar with items of brightly coloured, laser-cut cowhide, assembled right into a large-scale floral sample by Kyle Bunting, a designer identified for rugs.
“Individuals stroll up the steps and gasp,” Ms. Santini mentioned, including that the fabric additionally has a satisfying acoustic impact. “It’s lovely and purposeful.”
Panel It in Wooden
Generally a room requires one thing a bit extra understated. Then one of the best strategy to take could also be paneling a ceiling in wooden, which provides visible curiosity with out stealing the present.
Mr. Wright has designed many forms of paneled wooden ceilings, each painted and unfinished. For a comfortable library in Connecticut, he lined the ceiling with huge boards painted a deep purple. “They’re simply wooden boards, butt-jointed and painted,” he mentioned. “It creates a striped sample much like the wooden ground.”
For the lounge of a home in Brief Hills, N.J., the place the purpose was to make the room gentle and vivid, he added V-groove paneling to the ceiling and painted it shiny white, making a extra pronounced sample that also has loads of reflectivity.
If the wooden gained’t be painted, the variability and character of the uncooked materials makes a giant distinction.
For a main suite within the barnlike addition to 1 home, Mr. Wright selected barn board with knots, to create rustic-looking ceilings. However when he was designing a contemporary home in Atlantic Seashore, N.Y., he selected clear cedar for a extra refined look.
“We wished a heat, mushy feeling,” he mentioned, that maintained the house’s sense of magnificence. “If each floor had simply been white, I feel it could have been soulless.”
Add Architectural Particulars
You don’t must cowl all the ceiling with wooden to offer it persona. Another choice is to make use of molding in wooden or plaster so as to add architectural element. Crown molding that runs across the fringe of the ceiling is the most typical alternative, however there are different choices, as properly.
When Mr. Jenkins designed a brand new home in Ann Arbor, Mich., he used skinny MDF molding to create shapes above the open living-and-dining space, defining the seating areas and setting off the sunshine fixtures. “I designed this geometric trim on the ceiling,” he mentioned. “However it’s all flat inventory and really cheap.”
Mr. Gambrel routinely designs rooms with muscular crown molding, however he has additionally used trim to offer ceilings a delicate coffered or beamed look, or to create grids that conceal entry panels and function frames round lighting fixtures. In lots of instances, he paints this woodwork a contrasting colour and sheen to point out it off.
Alex Alonso, the founding father of Mr. Alex Tate Design in Miami, just lately accomplished a room in a home close to Palm Seashore, Fla., that has white trellis panels overlaying a light-weight pink ceiling. “We labored with an architectural element firm that makes them,” mentioned Mr. Alonso, who had the prefabricated items reduce to suit.
The result’s an area with the sensation of a pergola. “It’s now my consumer’s favourite room,” he mentioned.
Wash It With Plaster
Even in the event you don’t need a lot ornament overhead, there are delicate methods so as to add visible curiosity.
One among Mr. Gambrel’s favourite choices is waxed plaster: a coat of naked plaster completed solely with wax after it dries. “It’s nonetheless easy to the contact, but it surely has plenty of motion to the end,” which is picked up by the attention, he mentioned. “It feels alive, in contrast to a rolled coat of flat paint.”
When he wished a deeper colour with extra variation for the lobby of a London residence, Mr. Gambrel selected tadelakt, one other sort of plaster, coating each the partitions and the ceiling in it, for a end that appears as mushy as suede.
The ceiling, he famous, shouldn’t be an afterthought — and it shouldn’t appear to be one, both.
Whether or not you need an elaborately embellished ceiling or one with a easy, calm end, he mentioned, “you need to make it look intentional, and prefer it was thought-about.”
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