When it comes to providing your home with a sense of dramatic grandiosity, there’s really nothing that matches high walls and vaulted ceilings. They bring to mind images of magnificent Gothic cathedrals, Byzantine domes, and royal palaces. They give a room a feeling of expansiveness. They improve the effectiveness of natural light sources. They help lower heating and cooling costs year-round.
But how do you go about decorating them?
With so much wall space to consider, much of which is well beyond the reach of anyone not currently using a step ladder, it can be difficult to settle on a design approach that makes the most out of the towering heights of the vaulted room. This is doubly true for apartment renters, who may not have the freedom to engage in thorough remodeling projects to bring everything into conjunction with their high ceilings.
The good news is that with the right eye for design, you can create a room that takes full advantage of all of the benefits of a vaulted ceiling, without running into any of the pitfalls that come with them. Here are several decorating ideas for walls with vaulted ceilings; take a look, and see for yourself just how grand your decor can be.
Lighting
With more space for incoming light to fill, vaulted-ceiling rooms are, as a rule, naturally better lighted than rooms with conventional ceilings. Of course, that all depends upon the position and abundance of windows, which is something that is largely out of the hands of most apartment renters. If your vaulted room features a number of windows or possibly even a skylight, you’ll better be able to enjoy the increased illumination that the vaulted ceiling provides. If, on the other hand, your room doesn’t take advantage of natural light in quite the way it should, there are a few decorating tricks that you can use to light everything up the way you want it.
–Work With What You Have. Unless your vaulted-ceiling room is completely windowless (which is unlikely, but possible), you should have access to at least some natural light. Take advantage of it. Throw open your curtains, raise your blinds, and wash the inside and outside of your windows to allow as much natural light into the room as possible. Natural light makes a room feel more appealing, and can really play up the additional vertical space of a room with a vaulted ceiling. And, on top of that, natural light is completely free, which means lower energy bills for both heating and lighting. Once you’ve gotten as much natural light as you can from your windows, consider adding some mirrors to your walls. Mirrors will help redistribute the natural light that you have, and can also help a room feel more open. The goal is to have as much natural light in your room as possible, so as to help illuminate the vaulted ceiling. This will not only help to draw the eyes upward (so that the vaulted ceiling can be fully appreciated), but it will also serve to dispel any gloomy shadows that might otherwise gather above. Hey, just because Gothic architects liked to use vaulted ceilings, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your vaulted ceilings have to look Gothic as well.
–Consider Your Lighting Fixtures. There are certain fixture designs that are very well suited to vaulted ceilings. Recessed lighting, for example, are inconspicuous enough not to draw attention away from the ceiling itself, while still providing the right kind of illumination to help keep everything bright and cheerful. That having been said, as an apartment dweller, you’ll most likely have to make do with whatever built-in lighting is available. Still, there are some things that you can do to improve your room’s lighting design. For built-in fixtures, consider replacing the standard bulbs with programmable LED bulbs. These smart bulbs shine just as brightly as—or potentially even more brightly than—conventional bulbs, while using less energy, producing less heat, and lasting as much as four times as long as compact fluorescent bulbs (and nearly fifty times as long as incandescent bulbs). Additionally, smart LEDs can be programmed to shine in a wide variety hues and illumination levels, can be controlled from anywhere in the world via an internet connection, and can even be set to respond to factors such as weather (brighter illumination for cloudy days, blue-tinted light for rainy conditions, etc.). And while you may not be able to install fixtures into the ceiling, floor-standing fixtures are a simple and elegant alternative, and can be used to shine directly up into recessed corners, driving away shadows and providing indirect lighting for everything below.
–Layer The Lighting. If at all possible, don’t rely on one type of lighting to keep your room bright. Use whatever built-in ceiling or wall fixtures you already have, and then add freestanding or portable fixtures as needed to help keep your room shadow free. To do this, wait until the sun has gone down, and then turn on your built-in light fixtures (without activating any additional lighting you may have). Make note of where the fixtures produce the most illumination, and where they produce the least. Then, bring in your free-standing fixtures and arrange them so that they ‘fill in the gaps’ of your lighting scheme. With enough overlap between your freestanding and built-in fixtures, you’ll have a room full of joy and light, all the way up to your ceilings!
Walls
It may seem too obvious to even be worth stating, but the reality is that high ceilings mean high walls. And, for many renters who enjoy apartments with vaulted ceilings, this means getting creative with their decorating. After all, the walls of a room with vaulted ceilings is a completely different animal from conventional room design, and if you don’t alter your design techniques to better suit your home environment, then you’ll probably end up with a room that looks as though it’s only half finished. Take a moment and familiarize yourself with these decorating ideas for walls with vaulted ceilings, so that you can give your apartment the best possible look.
–Show Your True Colors. Your walls may serve as a backdrop to the rest of your room, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t have a bit of color. And while leaving your walls white is actually a really good way to improve the the general illumination and openness of your room, you might find that other shades and hues work better with the rest of your decor. One thing that you’ll need to consider, however, is how the color of your walls will go with the height of your ceiling. If you’d like to make the ceiling appear slightly lower than it is, thus creating a more cozy atmosphere, you can paint it a shade or so darker than the color of the walls. Inversely, a lighter shade than the surrounding walls will make the ceiling appear even taller than it is. You might also notice that higher ceilings create a cooler, more distant feeling to the atmosphere of your room. This can be offset by painting your walls in warm colors, or by painting the ceiling itself in a warm color to help offset cooler hues elsewhere in the room. You can even mix things up a bit by selecting a single wall, and painting it a different color from the other walls. This ‘accent wall’ will help capture the eyes of those who see it, and will give your room a splash of personality.
–Work The Art. High ceilings and tall walls are perfect for displaying paintings, framed photographs, and other works of art. However, rather than simply placing your art wherever there happens to be free space, try to create a scheme that allows you to showcase your imagery in a way that allows each item the proper amount of attention. Leave space between the pictures and paintings, but try to stagger them so that they aren’t all in a line or the exact same distance apart. You can also use your large amounts of wall space to hang impressively large artworks, such as banners. Still, try to keep everything at or around eye-level where it can be fully appreciated, while leaving the upper third of the walls free from images. If you’re not comfortable with leaving the upper walls completely bare, then something like a wall clock may be a classy and useful addition to that space.
–Don’t Overdo It. With so much available wall space, it can be tempting to want to cover as much of it as you can with framed art, shelves, paintings, and anything else you can get your hands on. But while there’s certainly nothing wrong with using your walls to showcase your own personality, if you fill up all of that space, then there’s a good chance that your room will end up looking cluttered, disorganized, or tacky. Instead, leave room for your walls themselves to shine through, and try to stagger any artwork or pictures in such a way that the blank space surrounding them helps to increase their overall impact. When it comes to decorating the walls of your vaulted rooms, less (generally speaking) is more.
Other Decorating Tips
The walls and the vaulted ceilings may be the most obvious places to start your decorating, but it shouldn’t be where you stop. With a few other additions to the room in question, you can help add to the overall ambiance, and really make use of the unique design advantages offered by your vaulted ceilings and soaring walls. Here are a few room finishing-touches to help you bring everything together.
–Bring In The Curtains. Although closed curtains can make a room feel gloomy and confined, there’s no reason why some well placed (and opened) curtains can’t help improve the look of a vaulted room without sacrificing lighting or atmosphere. In fact, curtains can help a room feel more cozy, and add a much-needed softness to a space that is otherwise cold and hard. You can choose curtains that cover the entire length of your wall from floor to ceiling if you want to draw the eye upwards to the distant ceiling, or you can use something that is shorter if you’d rather reduce the feeling of vertical size. Also, if you’d like to make your windows seems larger, try placing curtains on either side of an unblocked window, with their edges barely overlapping the window’s edge—this will make the window itself appear larger. Curtains can also be hung on a blank, windowless wall, to provide the room with a bit of added texture. As far as colors go, remember that lighter colors help a room feel expansive and warm, while darker colors add a dramatic tension to your overall design. Don’t be afraid to go with bolder hues if that is more your style, but if you do, try to repeat that color elsewhere in the room to help tie everything together.
–Go Big With Furniture. Although it is very popular in room design to go for understatement when it comes to furniture, doing so may have a negative effect in rooms with vaulted ceilings. Small, simple pieces of furniture create an exaggerated effect on the rest of the room, and can make rooms with high ceilings seem a bit too large. Instead, rely on large furniture pieces made from solid, sturdy materials. This will not only play up the elegance of your tall walls and high ceilings, but it will also help bring that height down slightly for a more intimate space.
–Stand Tall. High ceilings means an unparalleled amount of free vertical space, so don’t be afraid to use it. Tall additions to your room, such as grandfather clocks, tall light fixtures, tall potted plants and floral arrangements, and things such as free-standing sculptures might appear out of place in rooms with shorter walls, but will look absolutely grand in a vaulted space. Place your accessories near the walls to add border to your room, or bring them inward to create the impression of columns. Whatever you decide to do, just remember: Vaulted ceilings and high walls means more available space; however you decide to use it, just don’t let it all go to waste.
Did we miss anything? Share your own decorating ideas for apartment walls with vaulted ceilings in our comments section!