Vaulted Ceilings: To Paint, or Not to Paint?

We have a lot of vaulted ceilings showing up in home architecture these days – including mine. And every time I’m asked what we should do with the sloping side of the vaulted ceiling. Should it be painted the same as the wall, or should it be painted white?

The answer is never clear cut. Sometimes you should. Sometimes, you’re better off not. It also depends on what you are going for in the room.

First I’ll include examples of where the call is a really hard one to make:

*Image courtesy of Nora Schneider Interior Design*

In the above, the wall color is very dark. If you were to paint the ceiling that color, it would seem it might become a really dark room – but there is still the dilemma of white squares of ceiling above – which tend to jump out at you. Another option would be to paint it red, and pull in the rug color.

Another difficult call:

*Image courtesy of Barbara Pettinella*

And another, though perhaps not as extreme:

*Image courtesy of Richard Taylor Architects*

Now, let’s look at rooms that look great with the wall color being carried up the ceiling:

*Image courtesy of Anne Fougeron*

*Image courtesy of Cary Bernstein Architect*

*Image courtesy of Southern Living*

And one more (don’t you love the dark painted backs of the shelves for contrast? They tie in beautifully with the central painting – interior design at its finest!):

*Image courtesy of Things That Inspire*

Of course, so far all the rooms where the color on the ceiling looks “right” happen to be rooms that are a lighter color, and it’s almost natural to paint the sloped ceilings the same.

The room below, however, could easily go either way – there isn’t a right or a wrong:

*Image courtesy of Element Interior Design*

Or here:

*Image courtesy of Oakley Home Builders*

And even here:

*Image courtesy of Spinnaker Development*

The hard call comes in when the room is a dark color, doesn’t it? Suddenly there’s this line between dark or contrasting color on the wall, and where that color meets your ceiling. We tend to avoid painting our ceilings dark colors – I remember a major shelf magazine ten years ago mentioning that it would bring the ceiling down & make it feel lower.  Personally, I don’t think this is the case. I’ve also heard a designer say it makes them seem higher.

*Image courtesy of Apartment Therapy*

*Image courtesy of Apartment Therapy*

Okay – yes both ceilings are flat… that’s not the point. The point is, the walls are a light color. The deep ceiling color is fine – in fact, it makes the room- and it would be great with a vaulted ceiling. Maybe even better.

So how do you deal with a vaulted ceiling, and a darker color? As I said before, it depends. You can create a new, natural line for the saturated color to stop, such as the great little attic bedroom below:

*Image source unknown*

Lovely, isn’t it?

Let’s look again at the orange room:

Drawing a line could work, but note your eyes once again stop… at the line:

For this particular room, it doesn’t work. The ceiling feels lower . There *have* been times I have employed this to visually reduce the height of an extremely high ceiling in a very narrow room – it can be quite effective. In the above room, though, suddenly the question of how to hang draperies just became much more complicated.

What happens if you paint the ceilings the same color as the wall?

Your eye kept going up, didn’t it? To my eye, it also looks like a larger room. And now the first image again, only with the ceiling painted:

Take note of what you notice in the room now. Painting the ceiling the same as the walls leveled it and grounded the design elements to the room. The windows, rug, bed, and other elements are what I notice more now, not the bright white ceiling.

Which is your preference?

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