Raise the Roof

Rooms with low ceilings present a unique set of challenges when it comes to decorating. Your first priority with these rooms should be making it appear bigger than it actually is. This innocent deception will allow you and your guests to feel less cramped in a room already predisposed to cramping.

If you have a good sized window in a low-ceiling room, you’re already off to a great start. Dress it up by hanging light-colored curtains as high as you can on the wall. By that, I mean hang them nearly on the ceiling- not at the top of the window frame. The curtains should hang almost all the way to the floor- this will elongate the eyes’ perception of the room as being taller.

For some odd reason, choosing furniture pieces with visible legs increases a room’s display of space. The key here is the height created by an item’s legs. By having taller pieces in the room, you’re opening up a pathway for light underneath. And, of course, more light equals happier rooms.

Colorful, large-scale artwork on the walls also help to elongate a room. Not only does artwork give the eye somewhere to focus, it gives the room a statement palette. In the same way curtains cascade down the wall, large artwork absorbs a lot of the height and vacant wall space in the room.

Mirrors are an easy deception strategy. Hanging larger mirrors on the wall gives the room an ability to reflect more natural light and physically “add” more space, even if it’s just a ruse.