In this guide you will learn how to decorate a small living room with high ceilings. Discover tips and ideas for decorating small living room with tall walls.
Every living room has its own decorating challenges, regardless of its size or shape. Small living rooms have several space limitations while large spaces have are often difficult to make the room feel cozy and inviting. The same goes for living spaces with tall walls. High ceilings are actually a great architectural detail for a home because it exudes the feeling of grandeur aside from the fact that it can make spaces look and feel bigger. This is especially true for small rooms. However, if you fail to fill the vertical space, you may end up creating an echo chamber.
Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to creatively make use of those vertical spaces of your small living room with high ceilings that will help you to minimize the noise that comes from huge spaces.
How To Decorate A Small Living Room With High Ceilings
Hang Art To Accentuate The Height Of The Wall
Utilize your collection of art work to trick your eyes by hanging them in a group that reaches the ceiling. A gallery wall may seem like it’s too much for a room with a small space but it actually helps to make the room feel and look bigger because the art is extended to the ceiling.
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Large paintings or large decorative art pieces that are made of canvas, fabric and/or wood may help to reduce the amount of reverberation. Apply the RULE OF THIRDS when hanging artwork on your wall. Begin by dividing your wall into three vertical and three horizontal sections. Try to imagine the grid you see when you are looking at the camera’s viewfinder. The goal here is to create focal points and to break up a tall walls. Utilize your grid to know where to put pieces of artwork on the wall and to know the right spacing between each piece of artwork. If you are going to put artwork above the furniture, consider the furniture as part of that bottom third and it is totally fine if the top third is vacant.
Use An Over-The-Top Chandelier
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A large light fixture like a chandelier is a great way to connect the room’s upper and lower level which makes it the perfect lighting for a room with a high ceiling. Consider hanging it in the center of the room or above the coffee table. It will surely provide a nice contrast and a bold statement in your small space.
Pick A Large Rug
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Small area rugs seem to be a perfect match for a small living room but it’s actually the opposite. A smaller area rug can actually make a small space look even smaller because it visually breaks up the floor into smaller ones. Therefore, use a large rug for your small room to anchor the lounge area and a way to give you a good starting point to embellisg the rest of the room around the rug.
Rugs help to dampen vibrations thus reducing the high-ceiling echo. Rugs with large patterned designs actually make the room feel spacious.
Choose Lighting Fixtures Appropriately
Your living space may have a lot of natural light during the daytime because of the big windows that are around the room. However, those windows will not help you to light up your space at night. Pendant lights and chandeliers are the most common light fixtures for living rooms and typically hang in the center of the room.
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However, relying solely on the ceiling light fixture will not totally illuminate the entire house. Consider the use of different types of lighting such as a floor lamp, table lamp and a wall mounted light fixture as they will provide a beautiful contrast against the light at the center. This will provide an intimate and cozy ambiance.
Using a wall mounted light is a great idea because it not only saves your precious floor space but it offers interesting features to the wall of your tall living room.
Utilize Small Sofas
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Large sectional sofas are ideal for large rooms as they fill all usable floor space. However, the use of a sectional can make the small living room feel and look crowded. So instead, utilize two smaller sofas and arrange them across from each other accompanied with a coffee table in the center.
Utilize Ceiling-High Curtains
Most tall rooms come with large windows or high ceiling windows. Therefore, you need to utilize curtains that will match with the size of the windows. Ceiling curtains or long curtains make your small family room feel larger. If you want to have a more classic look, choose curtains with light hues. But if you like to have an energetic and fun space, go for heavy or bold drapes. Remember, patterned curtains can bring coziness and warmth to a space but they can also overwhelm you.
Decorate Your Living Room Wall That Has High Ceilings With Built-In Shelving
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Shelving is popular for decorating high-ceiling living rooms. It provides extra storage and can serve as a place to display your beautiful collections like sculptures, photos, and other decorative items by utilizing the vertical space. If you like to read and have a very large book collection, you can allocate one part of your built-in shelving to create your personal library. Adding a library ladder will be a fun and interesting addition to your space.
Paint Your Entire Wall With White
Painting an entire wall and ceiling with a white paint color will brighten up any space and it will serve as a nice backdrop for large paintings or wall art with a black color and for colorful pieces of furniture which make them the focal point of the room.
Trees are also great decor for a high ceiling living room.
Optimize Your Available Home Space
For small spaces it is important to maximize your available space but not to the point of filling up all the available open space with furniture. Instead use multi-function furniture such as a coffee table that comes with hidden storage. The hidden storage will provide additional space to hold your throws, loose gadgets and other items which will help to keep your space clutter free.
Reduce The Overhead Empty Space
The ceiling is considered to be the fifth wall of your entire room. If you have a tray ceiling or ceiling that looks like a large upside-down tray that is placed into the ceiling, you will basically have a bare ceiling.
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Bare walls will reflect sound in a room and a bare ceiling will also do the same. Hanging light fixtures like a chandelier or a ceiling fan will not only control the bouncing sound but it can also transform your main living space into something stylish.
Extend The Wall Of Your Fireplace
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A feature wall in your living space is most likely where your fireplace is. A floor to ceiling fireplace will provide a beautiful focal point to your small living with a high ceiling. So if you have one, consider the option of extending the wall of your fireplace upward using brick or tile.
Tiles and brick are materials that absorb more sound than any other type of material. Therefore, they are a perfect substance to accesorize your fireplace as these will also help to reduce the high ceiling echo.
Corner Seating For Square Shaped Living Room
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A square shaped room is the most common room shape for a smaller space and if you have this type of room shape, consider corner seating or arranging your sectional sofa at a 90 degree angle to the walls. This arrangement will help you to get more for your space.
CreateAn Accent Wall
Accent walls are one of the best ways to break up the vertical area in your spacious living room. You can either paint one wall with different or a bold color, cover it with wood cladding or cover it with beautiful wall paper.
Decorate Your Small Living Room With High Ceilings Using Appropriate Size Of Furniture
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The use of high back sofas, tub chairs, tall bookcases and armoire are the best ways to balance the height of your high ceiling and tall windows.
Embellish Your Ceilings With Interesting Details
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Decorating your ceiling by installing ceiling beams is a popular design element for rooms with high ceilings. Just like chandeliers, beams are a great way to make a connection between the ceiling and the entire space. Aside from that, exposed wooden beams are a great addition both for a rustic and modern design home.
Another great way to add architectural details to your ceiling is through beadboard application. The texture from the beadboard provides warmth to the ceilings and makes the ceiling looks less spacious.
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If you have a vaulted ceiling and you want it to stand out or show its true beauty, consider painting it with pure white. Using a white color is the most popular color paint for small spaces as it helps to brighten up any space which will then create a feeling of serenity at home. This is especially true if you pair your white painted vaulted ceiling with modern black French doors and windows. The color combination of black and white never fail to give an elegant and sophisticated look to any room.
How To Arrange Furniture In Your Living Room
When decorating your space such as a family room, great room and bedroom, it is important to use basic design elements such as those used by interior designers to come with a good design. These elements include balance, scale and focal point.
You need to use the right size for your furniture pieces based on the space that you are going to work with. Then balance the placement of your sofa, side tables, coffee table and other decorative pieces by arranging them around the focal point in such a way that your room would not feel like it’s tilting or leaning on one side.
Using the bird’s eye view concept, picture your living room space and the all the existing furnishings in it. Then, grab a piece of paper and draw the shape of your room and make a rough sketch of all the furniture and fixtures placed in it.
Next, draw a vertical line and a horizontal line in the center of your drawing to make an axis. If most of your furniture is placed on one side then it means that you need to rearrange the furniture in such a way that they are properly spread out on both sides of the axis to create the sense of balance.
