KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Things are finally looking up for ceilings. As we're staying put in our homes, the fifth wall is getting attention.
For decades, ceilings have been ignored blank canvases and missed opportunities. But that's never been the case in Sally Hilkene's Mission Hills, Kan., home.
The interior designer's music room already had ceiling details, but Hilkene darkened and distressed the corbels to really play them up. And then there's her dining room, inspired by an Italian monastery's version of the heavens, with hand-painted Latin terms for sunsets and her three sons' birth dates. But the pièce de résistance is the family room Hilkene added to the home. Wooden beams accentuate the cathedral ceiling. The focal point of the room is a salvaged 15th-century Italian ceiling as wall art with eyebrow windows to let in light.
"Don't we spend most of our lives sitting or lying down?" asks Hilkene. "So why shouldn't ceilings be interesting? They can tell our personal stories, our family histories and even our fantasies, taking us away and bringing us peace."
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Hilkene's story is clearly about her love of Europe and childhood memories.
"Maybe my need to make the ceilings pretty comes from growing up in a four-poster tester bed with draperies, and I'd stare at the fabrics and folds above me," she said. "I use thick crown molding to play ceilings up. It doesn't have to be super expensive; you can put together two trim pieces."
Interior designer Becky Mosby also appreciates ceilings with charm and character. Her store's powder room ceiling is papered with a red Jaima Brown wallpaper, adding a rich layer to an already opulent room with gold-and-silver cabinetry and black draperies.
"It's comforting while still adding a pop of color," Mosby said. Still, she concedes that when you wallpaper or paint the ceiling in a dark color, you'll need more lighting.
Artist Devon Himes of Kansas City, who works with paint and plaster, creates interesting ceilings using old and new methods. One coffered ceiling in a Colorado project featured rosettes made of barn wood accented with lichen, silvering and baked-off paint. Another ceiling project featured a tortoise-shell pattern.
"People have been coming around from the plain white ceiling because they do really complete the space," Himes said. "But they're tricky. They reflect everything around them."
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Ceiling styles
Coffered
Sally Hilkene designed a stencil of her family crest and had it painted on the ceiling of her store. "It personalizes the space," Hilkene says.
Painted
Talk about a conversation starter in the dining room: Sally Hilkene had her three sons' birthdays painted on the ceiling in Latin. "Ceilings can be whatever you want them to be," she says.
Wallpapered
A powder room is an opportunity to wallpaper walls and the ceiling. Becky Mosby chose a red wallpaper with chandeliers to play up the room in her store.
Textured
Modern furniture maker Jason Milford wanted a ceiling with more architectural detail for his dining room. He searched the Internet and found Lincrusta, a paintable embossed wall covering. Painted in Sealskin by Sherwin-Williams, a grayed-brown hue, it resembles leather.
Planked
The 1905 home of Jason Milford and Amy Bhesania contains a strange soffit in the bedroom. Using random widths of ship lap, the couple planked the ceiling, which not only added interest to the ceiling but camouflaged the odd detail.
Stenciled
A trend in ceilings is paint stenciling, a modern spin on classic plaster medallions, says Sonu Mathew, senior interior designer for Benjamin Moore Paints. Mathew also used stenciling on the ceiling in her 2-year-old son's room: 99 red balloons, inspired by the 1980s song.
CEILING PAINT TIPS
• Start with good tools: a strong ladder, the right tape and ergonomic brushes.
• Popcorn ceilings? No problem. You don't have to scrape and skim coat them if your time and budget won't allow. A matte finish in a deep shade will minimize the textured effect.
• Don't use gloss paints unless your ceiling is in excellent condition. If it is, it's an excellent look.
• A lighter color than the walls makes them look taller. That includes tinted whites and cool blues and greens. Black and near-black also create a more expansive effect. Warm colors make the room come down, like a hug.
• A trick for making a tall room feel cozier: Paint the ceiling a different color than the walls, and bring that ceiling color down 3 feet or so into the walls.
• Use a color that varies from the walls and trim. Martha Stewart Living for Home Depot takes away guesswork by suggesting ceiling and trim colors for its wall-color paint chips.
• Timid about a ceiling color outside of white? Try a yellow-tinted white such as Niveous, which adds warmth to the room, or Sonnet, which contains a touch of pink, flattering to all skin tones. Both are Benjamin Moore. Sky Blue is a classic.
• Color-confident? Benjamin Moore's Caribbean Azure is deep turquoise. Benjamin Moore senior interior designer Sonu Mathew used Sesame, a greenish-yellow, for the ceiling in her recently repainted home office.