High Ceilings

by DoItYourself Staff

Q: I am a graduate of the Sheffield School of Interior Design and am writing to ask for help. I am designing a living room with 17-foot ceilings. It is long and narrow, with a sofa on one wall and two chairs with a table between them - on the wall directly across from it. Over the sofa, I have placed a large, Palladian gold mirror - very impressive. The problem is what to do over the two chairs. One piece of art looks lost, yet two seems to divide the wall in half - one half chair and one half wall art. Any ideas?

A: I'm still stuck on the thought of 17-foot ceilings, which are high enough that they'd spike the anxiety level of this anxious decorator, if they weren't so utterly gorgeous. Ceilings that high must give this room a soaring feeling no matter what the other dimensions of the room are. Where I come from, 12-foot ceilings are pretty grand, so this place must feel like you're practically outdoors.

And you're entirely right to think hard about how to make the most of that kind of space. Any time you have high ceilings to work with, you want to accentuate them, which will make the room feel loftier. It's easy to focus only on the space from floor to about 6 feet up from the floor - the space occupied by furniture and people. But it's the savvy decorator who realizes that the space above one's head can be equally important.

And you've obviously done your homework in the Sheffield Course, in which we discuss the options for wall decoration. But you have more choices than just one large piece or two small ones.

In fact, given that you've found a great single piece to hang over the sofa, what about breaking up the opposite wall with several small pieces? Or, perhaps even better, hang the single Palladian mirror over the two chairs, which will unify that side of the room, and hang more than one piece over the sofa. This would add balance to the room, as you'd have a single piece on the wall over the multiple pieces (the chairs) and multiple pieces over the single sofa.

Remember that you're not limited to either one piece or two for the walls. Since you have so much wall space, what about hanging a collection of several pieces of artwork? Using the same style of frames will add unity. This could be an ideal spot for a collection of family photographs.

Or, for a more avant-garde look, you could hang something from that high ceiling: a silk Chinese kite, a collection of wind chimes, or a flag suspended from the ceiling. Framed artwork isn't the only choice.

Once you let your imagination take off for this room, it will soar as high as those ceilings.