Upwardly Mobile: Designs for Vertically Challenged Rooms
Tall, high ceilinged rooms are incredible features in any home. Their natural ability to make the space seem light and airy lends a touch of elegance to the room, making it easy to mesh excellent design into the ambiance of the space.
Unfortunately not all of us are blessed with such features in our homes. In fact those who occupy cottages and period dwellings might feel more as if they live in a hobbit hole than a palace. But despair not, because some crafty tile design can help you add height, elegance and character to your vertically challenged rooms.
The trick with low ceilings is to adopt one of two strategies. You can either camouflage the ceiling, leading the eye away from it to give a sense of space, or you can accentuate the ceiling to attract attention and make a feature of it. If you decide to go camouflage, then there are a few tricks with tiles and interior design that will make this tactic work:
€ Go low: Choose low, chunky furniture, keep everything below eye level and the knock on effect will be a sense of height in the room.
€ Define the dado: Dado rails are a little out of favour, but you can use the typical height of a dado rail to segment your design. Tile, panel, paint or paper below the dado line to keep things low and trendy, and paint the area above it the same colour as the ceiling to disguise the lack of height.
€ Slimming stripes: Vertical stripes can help to elongate and give the optical illusion of height in a room. This can be achieved with thin strips of panelling, vertically arranged tiles or well-chosen wallpaper.
€ Stacked tiles: In a bathroom or kitchen, opt for rectangular shaped tiles arranged vertically to make walls appear taller. Alternatively large format tiles are great for making any small space seem bigger, and are very on trend for 2014.
If you think you would rather embrace the lack of height in your rooms than try to run away from it, you can have great fun trying to make the low ceilings appear to be a design feature rather than a problem. Here are some ideas:
€ Suspense: Add suspended design touches, such as a hanging pot rack in the kitchen or an uber cool swing chair in the lounge. Oversized suspended lights look great in low rooms too.
€ Expose: To gain a precious few inches of height whilst also making a feature of your ceiling, consider removing the plasterwork and exposing the beams underneath. Paint the whole lot a neutral, bright colour for a perfectly light and airy feel.
€ Decorate: Make a real feature of your ceiling by decorating it with a mural or even tiling your low ceilings. Some of the contemporary chrome or metallic wall tiles can be an amazing way to add interest and elegance to your ceiling, and metal effect porcelain tiles will reflect light back into the space, helping to brighten the room in general.
Unfortunately not all of us are blessed with such features in our homes. In fact those who occupy cottages and period dwellings might feel more as if they live in a hobbit hole than a palace. But despair not, because some crafty tile design can help you add height, elegance and character to your vertically challenged rooms.
The trick with low ceilings is to adopt one of two strategies. You can either camouflage the ceiling, leading the eye away from it to give a sense of space, or you can accentuate the ceiling to attract attention and make a feature of it. If you decide to go camouflage, then there are a few tricks with tiles and interior design that will make this tactic work:
€ Go low: Choose low, chunky furniture, keep everything below eye level and the knock on effect will be a sense of height in the room.
€ Define the dado: Dado rails are a little out of favour, but you can use the typical height of a dado rail to segment your design. Tile, panel, paint or paper below the dado line to keep things low and trendy, and paint the area above it the same colour as the ceiling to disguise the lack of height.
€ Slimming stripes: Vertical stripes can help to elongate and give the optical illusion of height in a room. This can be achieved with thin strips of panelling, vertically arranged tiles or well-chosen wallpaper.
€ Stacked tiles: In a bathroom or kitchen, opt for rectangular shaped tiles arranged vertically to make walls appear taller. Alternatively large format tiles are great for making any small space seem bigger, and are very on trend for 2014.
If you think you would rather embrace the lack of height in your rooms than try to run away from it, you can have great fun trying to make the low ceilings appear to be a design feature rather than a problem. Here are some ideas:
€ Suspense: Add suspended design touches, such as a hanging pot rack in the kitchen or an uber cool swing chair in the lounge. Oversized suspended lights look great in low rooms too.
€ Expose: To gain a precious few inches of height whilst also making a feature of your ceiling, consider removing the plasterwork and exposing the beams underneath. Paint the whole lot a neutral, bright colour for a perfectly light and airy feel.
€ Decorate: Make a real feature of your ceiling by decorating it with a mural or even tiling your low ceilings. Some of the contemporary chrome or metallic wall tiles can be an amazing way to add interest and elegance to your ceiling, and metal effect porcelain tiles will reflect light back into the space, helping to brighten the room in general.
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