30 Painted Ceiling Ideas That Maximize Style in Every Room
One of life’s greatest missed opportunities is designing a room without considering the ceiling — breaking what designers call the “fifth” wall, either subtly or (gasp!) dramatically. At Apartment Therapy, we’ve toured thousands of real homes over the years; many of the best designs we’ve featured make use of painted ceilings to make spaces really pop.
Drawing eyes away from interiors isn’t exactly the first idea you may have when overhauling a room. But harnessing the show-stopping power of a painted ceiling is often the easiest way to create an air of sophistication in a room that may be lacking inspiration otherwise.
Plain white doesn’t necessarily do a ceiling justice, especially in rooms that are tight on square footage. In fact, certain colors can make a room feel larger than it is by reflecting natural light back in your direction — and on a painted ceiling, these colors create a grandeur that feels as if you’re standing inside a palatial space.
Beyond elongating spaces, bathing your ceiling in paint can elevate a room that is understated in other ways — especially lacquer or glossy paints that add an extra pop of sophistication. And painted ceilings can also easily illustrate whimsy through patterns and murals in spaces like children’s rooms, home offices, or guest bathrooms. The sky is the limit when it comes to smart ways a few coats of paint can dress up a ceiling to reinvent the whole mood of your home.
To prove just how effective they can be, we scoured our home tour archive for the most stylish and creative rooms featuring painted ceilings. Whether they’re painted as part of a trend-forward color-drenched room, or make use of complementary color schemes to delight the senses, these designs all seize the opportunity the fifth wall offers us. Read on for our ultimate list of painted ceiling ideas, plus inspiration for how you may style your own space.
1. Embrace Color-Blocking
Creating character in a space is effortless when you rely on the bold contrast that color-blocking can provide, as this living room achieves within a Connecticut family home. This azure blue ceiling perfectly offsets the muted pastel green tones of the living room, juxtaposed by clean crown molding — plus, it helps create an illusion of height in an otherwise unremarkable layout.
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2. Offset an Accent Wall
There’s no better place to host an eye-catching accent wall than in the living room, where guests in this suburban London home comfortably gather. The painted ceiling (and intricate finishes!) featured here offer a delightful foil to the bold colors used in this abstract wall mural within the same space.
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3. Cocoon Your Guests
A trend with major staying power, color-drenching uses a single hue across walls and into your ceiling to create a beautifully cohesive look. Color-drenching your room doesn’t always have to be as rich or deep as this regal living room dressed in Benjamin Moore’s “Boca Raton Blue” — but it should pair furniture and window dressings accordingly, as was done in this historic Chicago apartment.
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4. Coordinate with Paneling
Rather than rip out vintage elements like mid-century paneling, why not dress them up alongside a painted ceiling? We love how this singular sunshine hue splashes across paneling, window trim, curtains, and this bedroom’s ceiling to create a burst of happiness upon entry.
Read More: The Groovy History of an Iconic ’70s Home Feature
5. Accentuate Your Wallpaper
Choosing a shade of paint that complements the primary color used in your chosen wallpaper is a quick way to please the eye. In this case, the clay pink ceiling perfectly melts into the hunter green design featured in this woodsy wallpaper, accentuated in the mounted cabinetry and vanity.
Read More: How to Create a Color Palette for Your Home
6. Maximize Your Murals
Lean into your maximalist sense of style by consulting a muralist to illustrate your home with a “muralscape” in a room of your choice. In this London space, the homeowner leaned into a style he calls “retro futurism,” a marriage of Art Deco-inspired patterns and shapes with bold color-blocking.
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7. Capture Light with High-Gloss Paint
Flood your space with natural light effortlessly by harnessing the power of a lacquered or glossy painted ceiling, which naturally pulls light in from nearby windows (obstructed as they may be!). A monochrome room like this Victorian-style home library also helps create the illusion of higher vaulted ceilings, as the color bleeds directly onto the ceiling at hand.
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8. Channel a Halo Effect
Paired with statement lighting, designing a starburst-like ceiling is a low-effort way to augment a white canvas without covering every square inch of this bonus wall. The geometric shadows cast by this mid-century pendant light only add to the solar effect that this breathtaking focal point provides.
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9. Opt for a Diadic Color Scheme
Rather than color-block with bold hues, choose a two-tone design that offsets colors separated by one shade on the color wheel; here, that’s terracotta and a soft pink. The cohesiveness of this contrast is subtle and inviting — calming even. You can achieve this both with advancing colors (red and orange) and receding colors (blue and violet).
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10. Complement Your Wall Art
If you have a statement piece hung or framed in your space, anchor it by washing the entire space in a complementary hue. In this case, this sun-drenched Los Angeles bedroom draws attention to a beloved tapestry by leaning into an earthy color for the surrounding walls and ceiling above. Achieving this polished look is easier if the object is particularly large and centered, as shown.
Read More: 15 Creative Accent Wall Ideas for Every Design Style
11. Go Dark
Don’t be afraid of the dark! Drenching your ceiling in black can help create a luxe, modern feel when glitzy finishes might not be available to you. Keep the room feeling airy and accessible by ensuring that the furniture or other decorative touches are lighter in hue.
Read More: 40 Black Rooms That Make You Want to Go to the Dark Side
12. Create Geometric Shapes
Not all of your ceiling needs to be fully painted — stencils and patterns can be applied, as can geometric cutouts that flow upwards from walls below, similar to this kitchen detail. This Art Deco-inspired mural makes use of hand-painted figures using exact geometric measurements to create angular motifs that extend onto the ceiling above the range.
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13. Highlight a Hallway
Murals that transcend walls and jump onto ceilings (or floors!) are delightfully entrancing in a hallway, naturally drawing your guests deeper into your home. The bright, larger-than-life interpretation of psychedelic florals perfectly marries with the rest of the primary colors used in this maximalist bungalow in Ontario.
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14. Underscore Your Lighting
Painting just the edges of a ceiling created a focal point centered on the impressive pendant light in this Montreal bungalow’s guest bedroom.
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15. Mirror the Sun
Anchor white walls with a blast of cheerful sunshine by opting for a rich, bright yellow across the ceiling, as this space does with Sherwin-Williams’ “Quilt Gold.” This tactic helps make this small home office-turned-closet combination seem much larger than its footprint, energizing the whole space for a full day’s work.
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16. Limewash Your Ceilings
Drawing cues from local nature, this Ojai, California, home takes cues from Spanish adobes and nearby ranches in creating an element of texture on walls and ceilings with a limewash finish. Limewashing is easy to do, even if you’ve painted your walls years ago — simply drench your ceiling in a color of your choice, and limewash both surfaces afterwards.
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17. Lean Into Stripes
Loud, wide circus-chic stripes are seriously en vogue with designers. In the example above, the look is achieved by opting for paint versus wallpaper. With a dark color such as this noir black, delight the senses by simply painting half of the white wall you’re starting with.
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18. Go Au Naturale
Bringing elements of the outdoors in is always a good idea — especially in this lovely kitchen mural, where a foliage motif nods to the attached balcony in this space. Painting florals, foliage, greenery, and other plant forms into the white space of your ceiling is certainly a surefire way to draw eyes upward.
Get the Look: This Stunning Kitchen Makeover Was Done in Just 5 Days
19. Focus on the Trimmings
Painted ceilings don’t always have to precede fully coated walls; in fact, pairing your ceiling with a fresh coat of paint on mouldings, window frames, and other trims in the room is a fresh way to introduce color into any space.
Get the Look: A “Sad, Forgotten Room” Gets an Energizing Makeover
20. Douse Your Moldings
Traditionally, the pristine white hues of crown molding help separate walls from ceilings, creating a visual separation between the two. But we love how this space creates more pronounced definition to the ceiling by sticking to a two-tone paint job that eliminates the white space molding usually provides.
Get the Look: A Bold Paint Choice Brings Out the Best in This 1930s Living Room
21. Create Contrast with Bold Patterns
Add vivid contrast with a set of white walls by creating a pattern on your ceiling that’s hard to miss. These larger-than-life stripes are arranged directionally to help draw guests beyond this apartment’s entryway.
Get the Look: An Entryway’s $25 Paint Job Makes a Maximalist Statement
22. Bathe Guests in a Rosy Glow
Although the walls remain mostly untouched, a muted pink shade reflects the vivid upholstery on this living room’s sofa. The ceiling only adds to the glorious indirect lighting provided by this room’s windows.
Get the Look: This Living Room Redo Has Three Designer-Level Furniture Hacks
23. Try Triadic Color Schemes
The balanced triadic trio of gray, pink, and pops of orange in the zoo-like wallpaper work together in harmony to create a naturally Zen space.
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24. Anchor Your Doors
In this New York City apartment, a child’s bedroom makes use of a painted ceiling that’s two shades darker than its neutral wallpaper — and employs the same color across closet doors. It’s a safe move that marries all three elements together — especially if the paint at hand is a calming neutral paint color.
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25. Dress the Outdoors
Painted overhangs are also a great idea for any outdoor seating areas — on verandas, covered porches, terraces, or otherwise. Framing the disco ball with this sage green ceiling proves that this polished idea works outside, too.
Read More: These 7 Small Outdoor Spaces Prove That Yours Has Potential
26. Add a Mural Backdrop
Painted murals pop even more when they’re layered on top of a painted ceiling. In this primary bedroom, the pride-inspired geometric mural that spans the room is laid upon a coat of Behr’s “Pink Sea Salt.”
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27. Paint Your Attic
Trying to make a bonus space, such as an attic, feel more livable? Lean into romance and reach for a warm, advancing color that envelops you as you enter the space. We’re loving how this home office came together in an attic space that was otherwise unused.
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28. Match the Curtains
Framing a large window with an appropriately dressed curtain is one thing, but the design-obsessed can take it a step further. Coordinate your painted ceiling with curtains and framed artwork, as is done in this Victorian home in the United Kingdom.
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29. Use More Than One Material
To offset the daybed from the rest of this kids’ arts and crafts space, this Utah family home sectioned off the space by applying painted wood panels across a wall and onto the ceiling. It’s a tactical choice that proves a ceiling doesn’t have to be homogeneous; feel free to mix finishes in the same way you’d apply more than one color in some designs.
Read More: Kids’ Bedroom Ideas So Fun They’ll Stop Sleeping in Your Bed
30. Blend Art into Murals
Why stop at just one? Maximalists and eclectics alike create magical spaces when they deploy more than one patterned mural into action at one time. This artist’s home in Kentucky masterfully juxtaposes a painted, patterned ceiling against a mural and textured art in the living room.
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