When we start thinking about painting and decorating our home, the ceiling often gets overlooked. It’s right there guys!!! literally above us and what we choose to do with it can have a HUGE impact on the room. And yet somehow it tends to get left out of the conversation? It’s like we get so bogged down in those 4 walls and what colour they are going to be, that we forget to just look up. But when you do, you realise that ceilings are a wasted space with the potential to be just as beautiful and interesting, adding a totally different dimension to a room.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to…

Drumroll please

‘The 5th Wall’

It’s going to change your decorating life 😃

In the last couple of years, we have finally started seeing an increase in the number of people painting and wallpapering their ceilings, and not to be a show off here but frankly it was about bloody time, I’ve been rocking the feature ceiling for over 6 years now #TrendSetter 😘

BUT… not everyone knows where to start with this one and sometimes you just have to be brave!

What colour to paint it, to begin with? Does it matter if my room is small? What if I don’t have tall ceilings? Do I  just extend the wall paint? would that be too much? 

Interior designers will always include the ceiling in their plans as it is very important to a room’s scheme and no surface gets left out. 

So, how to choose what design will work best and enhance your space? There are so many exciting options now when it comes to home decor! We can say goodbye to the outdated days of the white ceiling and yippee to seeing more decorative and inspiring things happening right above our heads.

If you’re looking for a quick way to pack a punch in your space and add some drama and interest, a painted or wallpapered ceiling is definitely the way to go. It can be done in any room, but there are some spaces where having one just won’t work. To help you pull it off and give you some inspiration, here are some of my favourite featured ceiling trends and examples of how I incorporated them into my home. 

Pink walls are one thing but a pink ceiling? That’s a whole different ball game. I know what you’re thinking…but wait pink is actually so versatile and can actually make us feel happier. I already have my bathroom in pink including the pink tub of course so you might already know I’m in love with the happy-go-lucky colour. 

Painting the ceiling instead of painting all four walls in a room can really add that wow factor without being too overwhelming if you want to be bold with paint.

In this room to not overwhelm the decor and to avoid bringing the ceiling down optically, I kept the walls white and used the ceiling as a canvas for that accent yellow colour which can be seen throughout the theme in this room. It’s the same paint shade as the feature fireplace.

It also doesn’t always have to be lighter than the walls either. In this bedroom, I used a darker shade of rust orange that complemented the peach walls and created a really cool contrast along with the army green. To create this contrast you can start by painting the four walls a block colour which finishes a metre below the ceiling and then adds a different colour to the last metre and ceiling. If you live in an old Victorian house with a picture rail, you can use this to create a perfect two-tone room.

Putting up wallpaper is not for the faint-hearted! Although a little bit more hard work is required (think wallpaper paste dripping and running down your forehead) it pays off and creates a stunning feature in your home. I would suggest using removable wallpaper if possible, especially if you’re not a pro, but who is? It’s not only easier to install and will help you avoid said wallpaper paste forehead but you can also pull it down easily if you decide it’s too much. This is especially important if you want to decorate a ceiling in a rental and can’t go ultra permanent. 

So what are some hot and sexy wallpaper ceiling trends on the radar??      

With wallpaper on the ceiling, anything goes! A bold print can be added to a plain white room with soft hues. When creating a calming effect in a room such as a bedroom or a nursery, scenes like floating clouds or nature-inspired patterns are perfect for the job! Your wallpaper could send you into dreamland instead of you having to count sheep.

In my son’s nursery, I went for a fun cactus wallpaper which I’ve also dragged across the picture rail to create a more dramatic effect. The wallpaper went really well with the colour scheme of the room as well as the animal theme. Sometimes it is best to stick to the theme, especially when creating a relaxing environment such as this one. I think it kept the imagination of a children’s bedroom without being too loud.

This trend for nature lovers also works in other rooms and can create something really magnificent and bold. 

A nature-inspired living room by Denise McGaha Interiors is a perfect example. It has a wallpapered ceiling that resembles lily pads, as well as blue and green tones throughout.

It’s important to remember a few things when choosing the colour for your ceiling. 

Strong colours might read darker than they are due to the light hitting a ceiling differently and this can make a space look smaller. The eye will also be drawn to the strongest colour and this could give it the illusion of a drop in ceiling height. Don’t give yourself claustrophobia if you have very light walls instead try gentle pinks, blues and yellows if you have white or cream walls. 

If you do want to paint ceilings with a BANG and go bright but don’t want the ceiling height dropping, don’t paint over the edges of the ceiling with your bold colour, and take the wall colour up over the crown moulding onto the ceiling.

It is best to stick to light colours for smaller rooms with lower ceilings and you can experiment more with darker tones in a bigger space. 

If you can pull it all together your space will be completely transformed and your house visitors won’t believe they haven’t thought of decorating their ceilings first! Go you!