20 Living Room Designs With Painted Ceilings

You spend a great deal of time in your living room, and you want it to be a beautiful reflection of who you are and of course, express your taste and lifestyle. Decorating your living room starts with the perfect paint job. Painting is typically the first, and most important step in designing any room in the house, and for most people, it’s one of the most difficult steps. It can be hard to choose a color scheme for your living room, but it can get even harder if you are also toying with the idea of including your ceiling in the paint job. To paint the ceiling, or not? That is the question. Since we all know that basic white ceiling can be very boring, and in some case, down right ugly, we have some thoughts on the topic of ceiling painting, and it may help you with your decision.

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Flat or gloss finish?

If you decide to take a leap and paint your living room ceiling, before you do anything or choose a color, you will want to understand the difference between flat, eggshell and gloss finishes. While there is a time and place for sheen finishes, more times than not, the ceiling isn’t the place to use them. Ceilings are typically one of the areas that has imperfections that will light up when glossed over with a sheen finish. High-gloss finishes are notorious for exposing all of your ceiling’s imperfections and highlighting them, so when it comes to coating your ceiling with a color of paint, keep it flat to help hide these imperfections. There are certain colors that can handle a bit of gloss, and they are dark colors, not light. Even then, your ceiling’s bumps and other slight imperfections might be highlighted more than you’d like.

Light or dark?

When it comes to choosing a color for your ceiling, it can be hard to know if you should go light or dark. Should you put a lighter or darker contrast to your wall color on the ceiling? If you aren’t sure whether to go light or dark, here are a few things to consider. Light colors on the ceiling can open up the room, make the ceiling look and feel higher, and add a sense of light to the room. In contrast, dark colors can visually lower the ceilings and make them feel lower. If you want the feeling of a smaller, cozy room, darker shades lower the ceiling and can help create that feeling.

What to do with vaulted ceilings

Vaulted ceilings are spectacular views in a living room. They can make even a smaller room, square-footage-wise, seem much larger than it really is. As majestic as vaulted ceilings can be, they can be a bit difficult to know what to do about a stopping point with your paint color. One popular way to paint a living room with vaulted ceilings, is to continue the wall color up to the ceiling and including it. If you want a different color on the ceiling than on the walls, try adding trim along the top of the wall where the ceiling meets the wall and use it as your border for color changes.

If you want more ideas on how to paint your ceiling, take a look at the following 20 living room designs with painted ceilings.