Best Wallpaper Designs for High Ceilings
Wallpaper has become a not-so-secret superstar in the design world as homeowners, renters, and designers alike have discovered its ability to add color and dimension to a space. DIYers have even figured out how wallpaper can reduce or emphasize high walls. Available in a wide variety of hues, styles, materials, and patterns, wallpaper can make as much of a difference in a room as a beautiful piece of furniture or a stunning piece of framed art. It's available in both permanent and temporary materials, so even renters get to enjoy its transformative effects.
In addition to adding style and color to a room, wallpaper can make a room with low ceilings feel much more grand while it can also help a room with high ceilings show off its good bones and details. If your room needs that final touch, we've got the tips to help you pull the look together.
How Wallpaper Can Reduce or Emphasize High Walls
When figuring out how to wallpaper high walls and ceilings, you have to come to a decision. Your high ceilings are either a feature you want to enhance or a feature you want to minimize. Some homes have high ceilings that complement and show off envy-worthy details, like floor-to-ceiling windows and intricate molding. Other homes have high ceilings that make rooms feel overwhelming and uncomfortably immense.
Making High Ceilings Look Lower
Creativity is truly in your hands when you know how to use wallpaper to visually change the size of a room. If you're trying to make your high ceilings seem lower, choose wallpaper that helps make the room feel more intimate. Dark wallpaper does a great job of filling out a room and making it feel less lofty and arena-like. The darkness lowers the ceiling by tricking the eye into looking at the walls versus the ceiling. If you're going the dark wallpaper route, painting the ceiling in a similar color to the wallpaper can also help create the illusion of a lower ceiling.
Choosing wallpaper with bright, colorful hues and patterns is another way to appear to minimize the height of super-high ceilings. Horizontal wallpaper patterns are really ideal because they draw the eyes across the walls instead of upwards. Bold shapes on geometric wallpaper or diagonal lines on striped wallpaper can have the same effect.
If you're keeping the ceiling all one color, leave a space or gap between the wallpaper and the top of the wall that touches the ceiling. This visual trickery gives the illusion that the ceiling is much lower. You can add molding at the separation point in order to enhance the illusion. This will help create a more finished look between the wallpaper and the ceiling.
Wallpapers that come with raised detail, like flock or relief wallpapers that have three-dimensional effects, draw the eye to the pattern and away from the ceiling. The effect is enhanced when lighter paper is used on the ceilings and paired with darker paper on the walls.
Finally, if you've got unique taste, then go all out on wallpaper that really pops with color. If you paper your ceiling in a showstopper, paired with light walls, you can give the room a cozy feeling. This technique works especially well in rooms that feel cramped.
Enhancing High Ceilings
When you want the majesty of a room to leave your guests breathless, how to wallpaper high walls and ceilings comes down to the ambition of your inner eye. High ceilings benefit from a refined, luxurious touch, so go rich and bold with your colors. Choose wallpaper that feels more like art adorning the walls.
Feel free to use bold, geometric wallpaper that draws the eye ever upward. Metal, textured, or pattern-filled papers can also open the door to a room that really wows. Remember that you're going for a look that celebrates the room, but you don't want to choose a pattern that overwhelms it.
Another way to emphasize a room’s height is to put a pattern on the ceiling that will draw people's eyes upwards. This could mean something like a gorgeous sky pattern. Let the ceiling alone hold a beautiful masterpiece while the walls complement.
With these tips in mind, you can enhance the look and feeling of a room or maybe even reign in some of its power. Get creative and design the home of your dreams! Wherever you are on your DIY journey, we're here to help. Browse our beautiful selection of wallpapers, and get those gears turning.