Struggling to style that room in your house with a high ceiling? Your wall decor looks tiny, there’s too much blank space, and even with all your furniture it feels… empty. Today I’m sharing three easy ways you can style your high ceiling space (without no demo!) to make it feel cozy, cohesive, and styled. Try one of these design ideas below to style your room with a high ceiling!
The Challenges of A High Ceiling for Homeowners
Of all the home design struggles I encounter, styling tall walls and slanted ceilings ranks high.
A tall ceiling can make a room feel massive, but not necessarily in a cozy way.
In fact one of my must-haves when we were buying our home last year was: “No super tall ceilings.”
That might be surprising… Because tall walls usually mean more windows and natural light, right? Definitely things I want in a home.
But after living in a rental home with these features, I struggled to style these rooms!
- “What do I do with all this empty space?”
- “I tried decorating but it all looks cluttered.”
- “All of my wall decorations look tiny when I put it up.”
It really hit home when I read a designer put it this way…
“This is a home, not a corporate building. Homes should feel cozy, and two-story open spaces hardly provide that.”
Having so much vertical space above your furniture and decor makes the room feel disproportionate. The scale is awkward, making furniture and decor feel small, with lots of empty gaps and blank visual space.
Save this post!
Figuring out what works stylistically is a challenge. And yet this architecture element is so common!
So how do we style it well in our homes?
I’ve learned a few tricks that can make styling tall walls and high slanted ceilings a little easier.
Design Ideas for Styling A High Ceiling Room
1. Make your ceiling stand out.
Tall walls naturally move your eyes upward. Your eyes focus first on your focal point (your most attention-drawing element), but they’ll eventually make their way to the highest point in the room.
So adding a beautiful design element to your attention-seeking ceiling makes a huge impact! It helps the room feel cohesive, detailed, layered, and beautiful from top to bottom.
Try adding a ceiling treatment like tongue and groove with natural wood beams. You could keep the ceiling a neutral color to help it blend beautifully into the background, or go bold with a color. If the ceiling has minimal texture, you could add a color-block like this. For something bold, you could paint your ceiling like this.
Add a beautiful statement light fixture, and suddenly the room feels much more grand, detailed, and layered.
This is a costly option, for sure.
But the outcome is the most impactful and well worth the investment!
2. Add a floor-to-ceiling wall treatment.
The temptation with high ceiling walls is to try to fill the blank space with lots of wall decor. But unless your using extra large scale art, wall decor ends up looking like art for ants.
To help mitigate this, try adding a simple wall treatment first!
It can be as simple as a floor-to-ceiling, skinny board and batten. This can add just the right amount of architectural detail to make the room feel styled and complete.
And it makes decorating really simple. You can layer a few intentional wall decor pieces throughout the room and leave the rest blank.
3. Use statement furniture.
To bring your eyes back down to earth and away from the ceiling, try using statement furniture or a rug.
If your ceilings and walls are a neutral color (which usually works best for tall ceilings and open spaces), go for strong furniture choices.
Like a bold color, a unique style, or an ultra cozy vibe.
Add color and textures through your furniture and accents like rugs, ottomans, bookshelves, lamps, accent pillows, throws, etc.
This will help anchor the big space with visual weight, making the room feel more cozy and grounded.
Summary: Styling, Furnishing, and Decorating A Home With High Ceilings
Styling rooms with high ceilings comes with unique challenges, but with a few design tricks you can make your room feel just as cozy, comfortable, and beautiful. Try adding a ceiling treatment like tongue and groove for architectural detail, add a floor-to-ceiling wall treatment like board and batten to draw your eye upwards, or use statement furniture to ground the space.
Bonus: Mood Board for Bedroom with Tall Walls & A High Ceiling
I recently had the privilege of designing a small primary bedroom for a HillHomeLove follower with this exact setup: tall walls, small square footage, and a slanted ceiling.
I put together:
- A full mood board with links
- Design tips for styling bay windows in a bedroom home office
- Styling suggestions for tall walls
- Paint color and furniture ideas
- and more.
Here’s how we navigated it all to create a beautiful design for her bedroom!
