Types of Ceiling Designs: A Comprehensive Guide to Design Options

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Creative Ceiling Designs and Patterns For Your Home

The ceiling is often the last thing you consider when starting a decor or a paint project. However, it takes up a massive amount of visual space and should be used to create an undeniable, and lasting impression on your guests. It’s easy to underestimate its importance in the initial design phases, but as you near construction and all your design pieces are coming together you’ll notice that ceiling design is the cherry on top of your design plan, making it thoughtful and stunning to suit your aesthetics is going to pay off well in the long run.

This blog will help you with exactly that. Stick around to learn stunning ceiling designs and how you can leverage them. 

High vs Low Ceilings – Which Option Should You Choose?

Aleksey Ivanov and Pavel Gerasimov, founders of Geometrium Design Studio say, “In modern housing, the wiring is complex, so lower ceilings are needed to hide all the wiring.”

If you’re thinking about going with high ceilings, or low ceilings, there are a few considerations before you finalize the height of your ceilings. 

Low ceilings are great if you want the following:

✅If you want a seamless look while discreetly hiding the wiring and other accessories for built-in lighting and ventilation

✅ You want to ensure the intersection of wires of other fixtures

✅ To bring in niches in the wall to hold drapes, recessed and cove lighting, etc

✅ Position drapes to hang before the radiation, so it doesn’t touch radiators or be affected by it

✅ You want to create unique, and dedicated zones within the same space, to separate the area from the rest of the space

Interesting Ceiling Designs

1. Dome Ceilings

This type of ceiling works well in homes with high ceilings. The engineering of the frame and the creation of the art glass that goes with it are crucial parts of the design. Domes are best designed and constructed as two panels so they’re super strong. Having just one panel would mean that it would sag, bow, or lift, so you have to make each panel strong enough to last the next 100 years. 

Use any color for the stained glass depending on the artwork you want to do in the space, and the effect you want to create in the room. If there’s already light coming out of the space dedicated to the dome ceiling your work as a designer is halved. If not you need to bring together construction personnel to decipher the exact dimensions of the changes you want to make in the first place. 

With dome ceilings, you can let your creativity soar high, as there’s no cap on the color, variety, and versatility of the designs you can create. 

Read also – What is a Tray Ceiling and How to Install it at Home?

2. Fabric Ceilings

Fabric ceilings or ceiling drape designs are great for luxury homes, banquets, ballrooms, and wedding halls. However, with the right aesthetic, material, and finish, you can bring them to any home. Hanging drips and fabrics exude a soft, elegant, and romantic effect. Use a draping kit and sheer drapes if you’re going for a DIY project. 

Fabric ceilings will be wrapped around a main lamp or just irregularly on the ceiling. They look and feel best when installed in traditional, victorian, and bohemian design styles, but can be extended to other styles when paired with the right fabrics and finishes. They seem marvelous when they fall in pleats or gathers, but also as beautiful when they’re stretched out tight throughout the ceiling. They can be great for soundproofing, and they don’t collect dust as much as you’d expect. 

Perfect to adorn your living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms, they’re rather an expensive option, but totally worth the investment if you can ensure they will be maintained frequently and right. Regardless of which type of fabric you’re going for, ensure it’s naturally nonflammable or well-treated. 

3. High Ceiling Design

If you’re going for a high ceiling design to make your home look palatial, there are a few things you can do to make it airier, lighter and brighter:

✅ Keep the scale of the decor in proportion to the room

✅ Keep drapes similar to the wall covering, so they are less overpowering, more inviting, and brighter.

✅ Instead of hanging one large piece of art in the high ceiling room and making it another towering feature, bring a custom piece of art and divide it into 4 panels

4. Skylights Ceiling

Natural light is a powerful force in our lives – life-giving, warming, and mood-altering. Infuse a sense of wonder by hiding the frame. The visual trickery involving the mirror is a playful extension of the size distortion taking place. Consider self-cleaning glass for your skylights – it has a special coating that breaks down surface dirt, leaving it to be washed away. Light entering the glass makes the ceiling look taller and more dramatic.

But, one of the things you need to consider during design of the skylights is orientation:

Direction (Orientation)	Significance
North	Provides the coolest color temperature, bluer, and gives the most even indirect light
East	Allows for the intense early morning light, and the rest of the day will look like light in the northern room only a lot cooler
South	Intense brightness with a high potential for overheating spaces. It’s best for winters in northern climates and allows for extreme cooling in southern climates
West	Makes for intense heat gain, especially towards late afternoon.

Altering the shape of the bounding edges can turn even a small skylight into a meaningful and powerful statement. Another great way to make private spaces like bedrooms and bathrooms is by bringing a skylight in the ceiling. 

Read also – How to Remove Popcorn Ceilings in 7 Easy Steps

5. Coffered Ceiling

Coffered ceilings are a staple in interior design, and they add a touch of elegance and sophistication to any space for centuries. They’re a mark of luxury. Coffered ceilings are those that have recessed, hallowed panels which are created by adding beams to a flat ceiling. The panels may be deep and shallow, circular, rectangular, or polygonal. They can be painted all one color, especially high gloss, or contrasting colors to your beams. 

Type of coffered ceiling	Significance
Classic coffered ceiling	It’s right for traditional and formal places. You can have rectangular plane recesses frame with moldings.
Modern coffered ceiling	Characterized by clean lines, and a minimalistic aesthetic. You can create this look with various materials – wood, metal, and concrete. Geometric coffered ceilings are apt for modern design styles.
Beamed coffer	Gives off a rustic, warm feeling. In this style, you install large wooden beams in the ceiling in a grid pattern, making it an inviting space. Quite suitable for the family room, kitchen, and bedroom.
Multi coffer	Install one more level of coffer in the ceiling, to add depth and multiple levels of recessed panels creating a layered look. Brings about an instant warm and natural feel to the space.

6. Vaulted Ceiling

If you’re thinking of vaulted ceilings, you need to give a lot of forethought. It’s also called cathedral ceilings and looks beautiful. If you have a gable roof, you’re right on track to creating a seamless vaulted ceiling. The ceiling joists hold up the original plaster and lathe ceiling. Depending on your roof structure, you may need collar ties. Remove ceiling joists and install the right type of insulation according to your area’s building code. 

Add skylights if you want depending on the placement of the vaulted ceilings, and other lighting if you want to. Add track lighting to the ceiling, and use extensions to keep them all at the same level. 

But, the following frequently cited cons are things you need to equally evaluate when considering designing vaulted ceilings:

• Gives you plenty of unusable space in the ceiling
• Gives room for a lot of light
• They may be energy wasters and contribute to rising heat
• Can be difficult to clean because you can’t access windows and crevices
• Frequently constructed wrong, so will need excessive supervision
• Often blasted with light

7. Barrel Vaulted Ceiling

This type of ceiling is aesthetically rich and creates a comfortable and homey feeling. Depending on the dimensions you’re going for, and the radius of the curve, go for a low-sloping or elliptical design, or a Roman arch. Like all design elements, you need to listen to a client’s narrative on how they want a ceiling to be, how they want the space to feel, etc. Make sure you accommodate everything they want in your design consideration before you whip out your tool or paper to design, i.e., decor pieces in the headwall (bookcases, fireplaces), so you can make sure you can make room for all of them. 

8. Painted Ceilings

Claire Jefford, Certified Interior Decorator, Business Coach, and Speaker at Claire Jefford Inc. says, “Painted ceilings create visual interest, and serve as a surprise to onlookers. It’s a great way to tie in your overall color scheme and highlight architectural designs. You can also repeat the color in the space in just the right places.”

Going with the same color on the walls and the ceiling is great, especially in lighter colors. Keep the same color but change the finish, to give a completely different look. Another way to make the space look fantastic is by ensuring you change the colorant level on one of the surfaces (walls or ceiling), to adjust the strength of the color, so that they look like they’re from the same family, and they don’t overwhelm the space either. 

9. Wooden Ceiling

Wooden slab makes open-plan living spaces more welcoming. Designed with modern lighting, it creates a modern and remarkable image. Wooden trim ceiling beams highlight your farmhouse white ceiling (if you’re working with one), and walls and bring a natural feeling. If you have a classic and traditional space, wooden ceilings bring in a refreshing look.

Weathered wooden ceilings with beams bring texture and creativity to country-style kitchens and living rooms. When combined with stone walls they are ideal to exude a raw and rustic atmosphere. 

Fancy a dark wood ceiling? Go ahead, and do it. They are sculptural and a work of art. Install wood with waves or plenty of movement in it if you’re designing them for a modern bathroom. Your client’s budget doesn’t allow for a complete wooden ceiling, here’s a budget-friendly option: catchy wood tiles create a visual feast, just as much as real wood does. 

Whitewashed reclaimed wood ceiling with beams fits a shabby, chic beach bedroom design, if that is the premise you’re working with. Emphasize your decor by choosing the right color, and the movement of wood. 

10. Crown Molding Ceiling

Julie Khuu, Principal Designer and Owner of Julie Khuu Interior Design says, “All crown moldings come with a specific depth to them. When you install crown molding, you’re expanding that ceiling height by a few inches. Try painting the base molding in the wall color, and the entire crown molding in the same color, and see the effect yourself.”

Crown molding is a great way to bring instant character and a touch of timelessness to a space, and ideal for ceiling design. When done for baseboards it’s called wainscoting, and when done for ceilings, it’s called crown molding. 

✅ Go for multi-level crown molding for a stunning look. Sky’s the limit when it comes to designing them. 

✅ Paint different aspects of the room (niches, accents, and the molding) in the same accent color, to make the molding stand out while still looking pleasing to the eye

✅ Avoid contrasting crown and base molding – it staggers the room and causes linear line breaks

✅ Get a rug that has the same patterns you want to create in your crown molding, to appreciate the lovely aesthetic that plays out. 

✅ Suitable for traditional, French, modern French, and Art Deco designs

11. Making Low Ceiling Look Higher

If you already have a low ceiling, but want it to look higher than it usually is, instead of splurging too much on remodeling, you can invest a partial amount in decor that can make the ceiling look much taller than it is. 

Decorate Vertical Space

Stack appropriate decor items or furniture vertically to make onlookers look all the way up. Tall bookcases and in-built shelving that runs from the floor to the ceiling are great. Use vertical shiplap, and vertical panel molding to help you with it. You can also go for vertical striped wallpaper to create the intended effect. 

Source Low Furniture

Another way of looking at how to make your ceiling look taller is to lower the furniture and the fixtures in the room. Low loungy furniture with low backs, low armrests, and even armless chairs work best. In fact, we urge you to try a petite sectional with a cozy lounge to see if it suits the space right. 

Julie Khuu, Principal Designer and Owner of Julie Khuu Interior Design says, “Low furniture keeps your eyes low to the ground while visually expanding the space above, which is why it’s a designer’s favorite.”

Try a Platform Bed

For the bedroom, you can go with a platform bed – which gives more wall space to visually carry your eyes up and through the space. 

12. Wallpapered Ceiling

Wallpapers work well on any surface, interior design style, and finish. While they’re predominantly great for traditional and transitional-style rooms, you can apply them almost everywhere. The right paper will look great for contemporary styles as well. Install wallpapers anywhere you deem fit, they appear fantastic in living rooms, kitchens, home offices, bedrooms, and entryways. Bathroom wallpapers too, exude a relaxing atmosphere.

Wallpapers are great for:

✅ Making a sterling first impression

✅ Repeating the same pattern on the ceilings and walls

✅ Making a low ceiling higher

If you can’t smear wallpaper on the ceiling through and through, at least consider installing decorative ceiling tiles in certain important spots on the ceiling. Tin tiles are excellent for doing it. Ceiling accent tiles are a great alternative to full ceiling tiles and still pack a big design punch to the room. They suit French, country, and farmhouse design styles.

13. Brick Ceiling

There’s something eye-catching about brick ceilings. They’re versatile, and gorgeous and go well with French, country, transitional, traditional and Mediterranean, and urban modern design styles. You can choose between different patterns, colors, and styles and you can rest assured they’ll look as ravishing as ever. 

Affix a brick ceiling in one or many of the following spaces and have guests gaping at the wonder you’ve created:

✅ Entryways

✅ Dining rooms

✅ Kitchens

✅ Family rooms

✅ Bedrooms

How to Design the Perfect Ceiling Design Using Foyr Neo?

Given that your home’s floor plan is unique, how do you know which of the above ceiling designs will work in your home and which won’t? You figure it out by visualizing it with your favorite items and ruling out the ones that don’t fit in. 

How can you visualize every space of the home without leaving anything to chance? With an advanced tool like Foyr Neo.

Here’s what you can do:

Step 1: Sign up for Foyr Neo’s 14-day trial.

Step 2: Go on to the Neo mood board and curate everything you’d love to have in your home and ceilings.

Step 3: Create the floor plan of your home on Neo.

Step 4: Choose from 60,000+ 3D decor materials and simply drag and drop them into the interior design.

Step 5: Get any material in any color scheme, texture, shape, or pattern and truly customize your ceilings.

Step 6: View the makeover in 2D and 3D, from all possible angles and lighting conditions.

Step 7: Render your design in a few minutes and witness your new ceiling in all its glory.

That’s all it takes! With 24/7 support and live chat, we’re here to help you if you ever get stuck anywhere. You can find tutorials on how to design on Neo all over the internet, so you’re never truly alone when you design using Neo.

What are you waiting for? Start curating your mood board for your home, sign up for Foyr Neo’s 14-day free trial today.