Kristina Wolf's House of Design

Interior Design, Accessorizing, and DIY Tips

half painted walls

Make Your Ceiling Pop!

Ready to wow your guests (and yourself!) with a bold interior design move? Throw some wallpaper on the ceiling and you’ll be mighty impressed by the results. There are all kinds of ways you can use wallpaper to jazz up your ceiling and provide an unexpected visual treat in a space that is traditionally left alone.make-your-ceiling-pop

Wallpapering the ceiling can be used in multiple ways. For example:

  • To add a bold color or pattern that would have overwhelmed the space on the walls.
  • Highlight an architectural feature or lighting fixture.
  • Provide visual interest on an expanse of highly visible ceiling (like the lower ceilings in a sloped upper-story bedroom or along the stairwell).
  • To add texture and pattern that replicates traditional wood moulding motifs.
  • Make a tall ceiling feel a little closer in order to create a more intimate ambiance.

If you’re feeling adventurous and love DIY projects, then more power to you. Check out these instructions on How to Wallpaper a Ceiling and have at it. Otherwise, we recommend using a professional so the job is done cleanly and efficiently – without the risk of mismatched lines, wrinkles, loose edges and other calamities that can occur during (and after) the wallpapering process.

Here are examples of the many ways wallpapering your ceiling can enhance an interior design. You’ll wonder why you’ve never used it in the past.

Move Over Michelangelo: 5 Great Reasons to Use Wallpaper on Your Ceilings

  1. Be bold – in moderation. There are some super fun and colorful wallpaper prints but they can easily overwhelm a living space. Instead, put them on the ceiling, where they are off the eyes’ beaten path. Then use accents and accessories to tie in the bright colors inherent in the pattern. It would be a special room that could accommodate the large, bright print that became the ceiling of this South Hamptom dining room, but it looks fantastic in its current application.
  2. Highlight existing features. Here’s another dining room that optimized the idea of ceiling paper. The use of white trim detail with a recessed border around the light fixture, combined with a matching shade of wallpaper, sets the stage for any guests who enter to take a seat at the table.
  3. Create a textured look. Texture is an important element of design. Without it, a living space appears flat. While high-quality textured wallpaper is pricey, it’s still more affordable than serious wood work. Therefore, seek out wallpapers with textured patterns that replicate ornate ceiling or panel work, and you’ll get the benefit of a luxurious look and texture for a fraction of the price of the real thing.
  4. Make visible ceiling space more interesting. Every once in a while, there’s an expanse of ceiling space that angles into our visual plane. A little visual detail is always a nice touch and wallpaper can provide just that. I think of upper-story rooms that have sloped ceilings or a low ceiling space that is angled to accommodate a staircase.
  5. Shrink a tall ceiling. More often than not, we talk about light and bright colors on ceilings to open up a space. However, every once in a while, you want to do the opposite. Higher-than average ceilings, typical of older homes, can make a room feel more cavernous than you like. Using darker colors is beneficial in these cases because they shrink the room a bit. Darker and/or patterned wallpaper on the ceiling will make it seem a little closer.

Half Painted Walls and Beyond

There are two types of people in this life: those who plan their next color scheme the minute the final coats of interior paint are drying and those who pass out at the thought of painting on their own. Well, I have a secret for you: half painted walls can be the happy medium for those of you in the latter crowd – and the result will be a living space that has all the benefits of a fresh new look, and added architectural interest.

half-painted-walls-and-beyond

Here are examples of how and why half painted walls can be a wonderful design solution for your interior spaces.

The literal half-painted wall. Meaning you measure how high you want the line, tape it off, and start painting above or below the tape line – is our first example. Like accent walls, this can be a good option for those of you who want to add a bright or bold color, but worry it will be too dramatic on an entire wall space. By painting the brighter color on the bottom, the boldness will be broken up further by furnishings, so the exposed areas become a nice pop of color. If your ceilings are low, painting the bottom half of the walls the color you want and leaving the top half white will make the room appear more spacious.

Half-painted walls also work if you want to provide a textured bottom to your wall, such as beautiful wood wainscoting, beadboard, or other wall applications; then you can paint the top half the color of your choice.

Precise sections of wall. You can also tailor specific sections of your wall for painting. For example, this living room in Amsterdam uses bright orange on the section of wall framing the grey couch. The grey and orange look great together. Cutting the orange section short of the door way keeps it a more distinct and intentional part of the design. What could have been garish becomes totally stylish when you know how to balance proportion and impact, and half painted walls can accomplish that.

Artistic interpretations of the half-painted wall. What is most appealing to me is some of the style-forward artistic ways that people are using color on their walls. Treating the wall as a blank art canvas, and using fun color combinations, unique application techniques and/or non-traditional boundaries (or lack thereof) is such a creative way to add color, texture, dimension and a whole lot of interest to your space. Look at these examples from decoesfera.com. The site is in Spanish, but you can easily cut-and-paste it into Google Translate to read the full blog. Here are some of my favorite examples:

  • Purposely uneven. Forget about the tape. Just roll or brush your color of choice in the general dimension/shape you want and let the loose and feathered edges become their own design statement.
  • Water color. Look how gorgeous it is when you make a section of your wall a watercolor canvas. It’s a wonderful and soft way to add color and becomes a modern work of art on its own.
  • Get a little funky. Check this idea out: one color is applied (almost traditionally) in a section behind the bed. The other color was applied with a textured technique on the top third of the wall and moves to the adjacent wall. It looks fantastic and will definitely solicit appreciative comments from guests.