Living Room Ceiling Designs

Design the ceiling and making a great living room.

A living room can be a somewhat formal room, and as such, it may have more architectural definition than other spaces within a house. But before casting a wide net into the sea of possibilities, it's important to consider the house as a whole — what is appropriate, true, consistent, and befitting a house in its particular style and location.

The common threads throughout a living room ceiling lead to a satisfyingly tailored look, one in which none of the details appears out of place. Ceilings and walls present opportunities for unifying a distinctive aesthetic. What you don't want to do is identify a perfectly good treatment for another style of architecture and apply it indiscriminately — for example, adding ornate crown molding or tin tiles to the walls or ceiling of a mid century-modern house. Architectural details must be appropriate.

In recent years, living room ceiling design has moved toward a more casual and comfortable style and away from the stuffy “drawing room” designs of past centuries. In fact, in many homes (big and small), it serves as both the entertaining space for guests as well as the family room.

Our gallery, while it includes living rooms on the formal side, you’ll notice that while these rooms are more often than not from luxury homes, they’re designed to be used regularly, are inviting and comfortable. Many featuring plush sofas, sectionals and comfortable armchairs. Nevertheless, the move toward a more casual living space hasn’t diminished the aesthetic appeal. In fact, I much prefer an inviting and comfortable lover a stuffy and formal space loaded down in ornate design and uncomfortable furniture.

Just like in art and photography, visually splitting a wall in three equal parts when decorating will guarantee balance and ultimately, success. From the bottom up, try imagining your room as having three different “design levels”. You can adorn the first with judges paneling, use the second for paintings and leave the third as it is. This is just a random example; as the photos below will show, the possibilities are endless. Furniture should also be placed within the bottom third. The idea is to create focal points and to diminish the intimidating feel of high ceilings.