If you are looking for a way to spice up a room, it might be time to look up, way up — at the ceiling that is.
“Most people just paint their ceilings white, and they’re done,” said Annette Phillips, principal and designer with Inspired Design LLC, in Vienna. “But ceilings are really the fifth wall. It can transform a room to do something different with that space.”
While Phillips has plenty of clients who have painted ceilings unique colors or even wall-papered them, there are some even more interesting options ranging bamboo to a Barrisol stretch ceiling that looks like brushed suede.
It is simple to change a room’s appearance for very little money, Phillips said. Metal ceilings with finishes ranging from copper and brass to chrome and almost every other color you can imagine can be had for as little as $13 for a 2-foot x 2-foot unfinished tin sheet up to $70 for a 2×4 sheet coated in copper or brass.
“Tin ceilings are really coming back,” according to Lyn Underdahl of Pinecrest Inc., the company responsible for those tin ceilings in Ruby Tuesday restaurants as well as thousands of residential applications all over the world. “People really like them for kitchens, bathrooms, and bar areas,” Underdahl said.
Phillips recently assisted a client with a stamped copper ceiling in a large basement. She boxed in three different areas of the basement with the ceiling to define three separate spaces: a TV area, pool table and sitting area. “The ceiling helped define the different activity spaces in the room,” she said.
Bamboo is another option that works especially well with contemporary design or Asian-inspired architecture. Many homeowners like it for the warmth it adds to a room as well as for its sustainable attributes because it is a quickly renewing, fast growing plant.
Kirei USA offers bamboo, wheatboard, cocoa tiles and Kirei board made from waste sorghum straw. Bamboo and other natural products typically are used for ceilings in bathrooms, kitchens, wine cellars and home offices, said John Stein, company president.
Costs for these products range from $7 to 20 per square foot and to as little as $1 per square foot for hemp.
Other unique ceiling options include Barrisol stretch systems, which are made of a unique polymer and available in a wide array of colors and shapes. It is great for adding drama to a tall space, such as a two-story foyer or cathedral or vaulted ceiling. Costs range from $20 to $45 per square foot.
If you just want to add some height to a room try a tray ceiling that adds the illusion of a larger and more open space. Tray ceilings work well with features like tin or even bamboo, which draw attention to the different depths.
Most commonly, designers use recessed tray ceilings where the outer edges of the ceiling are lower, with the highest point of the room being in the center. For ceilings that are plain and flat, the easiest way to create a tray effect is to add deep crown molding around the room’s edges.
