A cramped room can quickly bring down your home’s vibe, but you don’t need a massive renovation budget to fix it. With a few clever design tricks, you can easily trick the eye into seeing a larger space. Here are seven simple ways to make a low ceiling feel higher and transform a room.
Embrace vertical lines.
By embracing vertical lines, you can easily guide the gaze upward and make the entire room feel loftier. Introducing vertical wall treatments like striped wallpaper, painted lines or vertical group artwork creates an elongating effect that tricks the eye into seeing more height.
Add crown molding.
For standard 8-foot ceilings, choose a proportion of around 4.5 to 6 inches to make it work to your advantage. Create an even more elongated look by color-drenching the room, painting both your baseboards and crown molding the same color as your walls.
Hang drapery high.
Hang drapery panels high and wide, ideally just a couple of inches below the ceiling. Additionally, be sure the panel width is equal to or slightly more than the full width of the window and trim at a minimum. These tall vertical elements frame your windows, instantly tricking the eye into believing the room has more height.
Extend your materials from floor to ceiling.
Extend materials like tile, paneling or custom built-ins all the way to the ceiling. This seamless, uninterrupted vertical flow prevents the room from feeling squatted. And, again, color drenching in this case also makes a wonderful impact.
Choose lighting carefully.
Opting for appropriately scaled pendant lights or semi-flush mounts creates a sliver of negative space near the ceiling, casting light outward to make the room feel much loftier.
Put color on your ceiling.
Extending your wall color onto the ceiling, or even painting it a dark shade to make the boundary visually disappear, creates an effect that makes a low ceiling feel infinitely higher.
Choose low-profile furniture.
Furnishing your space with low-profile pieces and keeping focal points low to the ground leaves more open wall space above.
Summary
While mastering these clever ways to make a low ceiling feel higher can work wonders on your current space, Ryan Roberts is always here to help you level up and find a home with all the natural breathing room you want. And stick around and keep exploring our blogs!