Good Questions: How To Paint This High Ceilinged Room?

Hello AT,

My husband and I just bought a new house and are overwhelmed at the prospect of painting and furnishing it. Our family room has very high ceilings (14 ft), and we have decided to paint the walls pale blue. Because the upstairs loft can be seen from the family room, this pale blue color will extend to the walls in the loft too...

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One wall downstairs where the first flight of stairs stops and the second one starts will be accented in a darker blue. Another wall upstairs (in the loft) will be accented in the same darker blue shade.

My concern is that painting almost the entire family room and the loft in pale blue will make the family room seem cold rather than cosy. I'm thinking of accenting one of the walls in the family room (may be the center one) in chocolate brown, however to my husband this is a definite no-no.

He is very averse to such contrasts and if at all accenting would prefer a darker shade of the the same color that the entire room is painted in.

Would appreciate any thoughts on this issue i.e. about whether pale blue is a good color for a high-ceilinged room, whether to accent one wall in the family room to give it a less cold look, and whether brown instead of dark blue would be a good accent color.

Any other suggestions are more than welcome. FYI the living room which is adjacent to the family room will be painted in a light shade of green with a darker green accent wall.

Thanks a ton! Noela

Dear Noela,

This is a tricky situation, but there are a few pointers that will help you out.

1. blue is a cool color and a lot of it will definitely cool this big space. This is fine if are using warm colors elsewhere as it will all balance out, but we would recommend a warmer color if you are using cools elsewhere.

2. Because blue is cool, if you accent you should stick with a cool color. Brown is a tough mix with blue because it is so warm, but that doesn't mean you can use a different cool color like a green, lavender or grey.

3. Use your darkest colors downstairs. Dark colors have weight and they will make you uncomfortable if they are all over your head. Move lighter as you go up and the room will open up nicely like a sky overhead.

4. We recommend using one color over the entire room upstairs and down to unify the space. Then we recommend choosing a few walls to accent and signal the distinction between downstairs and upstairs. Here is also a nice example of accenting the tallest wall which dramaticizes the height of your ceilings:

Tyke and Jon's Living Room.

Anyone else?

Comments (15)

There's blue and there's blue.

Some blues are icy or grayish, so they're cool to the core.

Some blues are more like sky blue, with a hint of yellow in the base. Using this blue will be cooler than painting the room orange, but warmer than painting it gray-blue.

Brown makes total sense as an accent with blue. Why? Because many color schemes are improved by a touch of the color's opposite on the color wheel. Blue's opposite is orange, and orange darkened and toned down is brown.

Because you're talking huge expanses of wall that are difficult to paint, though, you'd better really, really like blue. There's a reason these big spaces tend to end up with walls in more neutral colors.

Hi Noela,

This layout looks very familiar... this wouldn't happen to be in No. Carolina would it?

I think too much is made of the warm/cool colors thing. Yes, there are blues that will make it seem you're living in an igloo; there are also blues that will invoke the Mediterranean (even if you don't have Mediterranean sun)...

There's a great decorating book called Choosing Blue. It breaks blues down into families, with great pictures, and paint references (usually Benjamin Moore, but not always) so you can find the right color.

Why not an aqua-ish blue? Something with a base hint of green. That would be warm.

The blue in the photo posted by len is icy. Very cool. In your space this blue may make you feel like you are inside an igloo.

Here's an example of someone using a warm blue on walls similiar to yours. She chose a deep red for her accent wall, though. Maybe a good choice, maybe not.

http://moderninmn.blogspot.com/

Chocolate brown in a space like this may be just a bit overpowering. The green from the living room (assuming it is in the same tone and warmth though it could be lighter or darker) would be less jarring.

Good luck.

len- I love that color of blue. Any idea what paint it is?
For a second, I thought a broker posted those links, but the townhouse appears to already be in contract.

I'm deathly afraid of blue walls in that space. Methinx 'twould inspire cries of "Attica! Attica!" I'm sorry, but I think that if you're looking for something safe, and vaguely cool, then the sagey green that Restoration Hardware sells AND paints the interiors of their stores with, might be a much better answer.

The style of your railing does suggest something vaguely historical, which is one reason why I think that would work.

homeboy-sorry, I have no idea about the paint. I just remembered the discussion about the house on brownstoner a while ago for the blue painting. Even I personally don't use the blue for my wall, I think it's a beautifully done example.

The bed room in the apartment we just bought is entirely robin's egg blue and has 14 foot high ceilings. It is very cool (so much so that we are repainting in warmer colors), but it does make the room seem very airy. It looks good. It's just not our style.

Funny that I was intending to reply to this thread talking about how I solved some of the same issues mentioned and I see someone has linked my blog (Modern in MN) in a prior response.
I completely feel your pain. In my case, this was the one and only time I've ever had to resort to both a do-over AND a test swatch on the wall to be able to choose a color.
Originally I had started in with a pale-ish neutral gray, but realized in short order that, while it served the smaller upstairs space well, it was horrible on the larger open expanse of wall.

Anyway, I agree in theory with what Maxwell said first about dark colors over your head feeling weird, but find that the dark blue (BM Naples Blue) is very successful on my giant wall because A. the room gets TONS of light, and B. it's great at night BECAUSE it brings the height down and makes the living room seem cozier.

I am a color-lover, but IMO, the larger and brighter the room, the more it needs deeper or more intense color on the walls. A pale color reads white in a very well daylit room, and this would be even more true in a high contrast combination like pale blue and chocolate brown.

I would start by considering different values of one color. And definitley dont' be afraid to swatch and then live with it for a while to be sure...

Bklyngal, nope this house is in North California:)

Thanks everyone for your comments, they were a big help! I've decided to paint the center wall in a pale steel blue shade, and accent the wall behind it (on the stairs) in a shade a couple of shades darker. The rest of the space will be left white except for one wall in the upstairs loft that is opposite to the wall that will be painted steel blue. This wall will be painted in the same steel blue shade. Will post pictures soon.

Aren't paint questions for gigantic suburban houses a little outside the scope of Apartment Therapy? Maybe you need an AT:Exurbs version.

I have to agree with superbad - one of the reasons I love AT is because of its focus on apartment living, and that it doesn't view apartments and small houses as inferior to suburban McMansions.

Hi Noela, here in Australia the new thing done is to paint a feature ceiling. For example i have seen a gorgeous display house that had a very big lounge room, to make it more cosy they painted the ceiling a moccha/brown ( not too dark of course) colour and the walls a very light shade of the same colour eg 1/4 strenght of the ceiling colour. It make the room so inviting and i think that would help with your ceilings being so high. Let me know what you think of that idea? Try some fabric wall hangings as well. See my website for some inspiration
http://www.kimtdesigns.com