Tips on Designing Great Ceilings

These professional designer tips will help make tall, vaulted, cathedral and low ceilings blend into your room design.

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Hide CaptionShow CaptionWhile wall color, flooring and traffic flow have a huge effect on the ground-level impression of an interior, it's just as important to include the ceiling when designing a room.

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By Alyson McNutt English

When deciding on room design, homeowners often pore over paint chips and fret over furnishings, sweating every detail of their space. But while wall color, flooring and traffic flow have a huge effect on the ground-level impression of an interior, remembering to include the ceiling will make your room one that others really look up to.

"The ceiling is such a wonderful surface to embellish," Hal Swanson, co-founder of Los Angeles-based Swanson-Ollis Design, says. "I often include the ceiling as a surface for design to complete the full look of the room. Why not? Michelangelo did, and aren't we glad that he made a chapel ceiling an important part of his grand design?"

The key to integrating a ceiling into a room's overall design is understanding the space, Nashville, Tenn., interior designer Beth Haley says.

"When designing spaces, think of the entire room three-dimensionally. If left untreated or ignored, then the emphasis will be on the ceiling," she says. "It will become the big white elephant. The ceiling should be the icing on the cake." Whether it's a tray ceiling, cathedral ceiling or a ceiling you bump your head on, here's how to make the most of what's overhead.