The ceiling can easily be one of the most overlooked places in the home, but can have one of the biggest impacts to elevating the aesthetic of a room and mood of the space. Today’s blog will be broken up into two parts. The first section will be DIY instructions and time-saving tips for three different ceiling remodels and styles that you can do for remodeling your home.  In the second half, cause I love that psychology stuff, we’ll be looking at the effects of ceilings on our psyches.

Part One: DIY Instructions for 3 ceiling designs

First: A ceiling design with a modern, calming tone

What you’ll need:

• Paint (color of your choosing for walls and trim)
• Paint brush, paint can opener, paint tray
• Small decorative trim
• Circle trim
• Ceiling medallion
• Light fixture (Consult with a licensed electrician about the Wattage rating of your current fixture)
• Finishing nails & Nail gun (I prefer my battery powered one. It makes it so much easier for doing ceilings)
• Compound Miter saw
• Cardboard
• Scissors
• Measuring tape
• String
• 2x wooden pencil

Instructions for border trim:

1. After painting walls, paint up the borders of the ceiling. To be constant, use the cardboard and scissors to create a template of how wide you want the paint boarder to be. I used a 7-inch boarder for this project. When painting you don’t have to be too exact with your edges since it will be covered up by the width of the small decorative trim.
2. Once done painting edges, use a measuring tape to get measurements for the trim.  Then cut it with the Compound Miter Saw and attach it with the nail gun.

Instructions for center circle:

1. Pre-paint the trim and the ceiling medallion
2. Have a licensed electrician remove the light fixture and make safe the area you will be working around
3. Take your string and cut it to be half the diameter of the circle trim size (the diameter should be written on the box)
4. Then, mark out the circumference of circle by attaching the string to 2 wooden pencils at both ends of the string
5. Hold one pencil at the center (over the light fixture area) and use the other to trace out the circle by extending the length of the string
6. Once the area is marked, paint the inner circle to match the paint on the walls
7. Next, attach ceiling medallion and circle trim using the nail gun
8. Touch-up paint trim and medallion to cover up nails or refresh spots that need it
9. Last have a licensed electrician attach light fixture

 

 

Second: A ceiling design with a romantic, classic look

 

What you’ll need:

• Paint
• Plastic blankets to cover floor while painting
• Finishing nails & nail gun (recommend battery powered for ease of use)
• Crown molding
• 11/16-in primed shoe molding trim
• Ceiling medallion
• Light fixture (Consult with a licensed electrician about the Wattage rating of your current fixture)
• Ornate wooden designs

Instructions for a vaulted ceiling with ornate wooden designs

There are a few ways to get decorative wooden designs.

1. You could purchase pre-made wood appliques. For example, Etsy’s Customs Bot does a nice large ones for for under $10. Just make sure, wherever you buy them that they are large enough for your design. A lot of times wood appliques are more for furniture accents which would be too small for this look.
2. You can do like I did and create them at a Hacker Space that has a laser cutter where you just upload the vector graphic file and it cuts the pattern out of plywood for you
3. If you’re not tech-ie and want more of a custom design, you could hire an artist on Fiverr to create the file for you and have it burned with Pololu.

Instructions

1. Have a licensed electrician remove light fixture and make the area safe for work.
2. Pre-paint the trim, ceiling medallion and ornate wooden designs.
3. Remove popcorn from ceiling, if you have it. DIY Duke has the best explainer video for how to do it yourself that I’ve seen. He really helps make it easy.
4. Next trim out the border of the room in crown molding.
5. Trim out the upper edging of the vaulted ceiling in the 11/16-in primed shoe molding trim
6. Nail the ceiling medallion to the center of the light fixture.
7. Next, nail in your ornate wooden designs by measuring them at equal length away from the light fixture.
8. Have the electrician install a new light fixture.
9. Do touch up paint. Enjoy

 

Third: A ceiling design for an eclectic mix of industrial and traditional 

Purchasing on a budget: Ceiling tiles come in many different material types (i.e. aluminum, copper, tin, etc.) and some of them can get really pricy. So, to reduce cost, I used Styrofoam tiles, which were $3 a tile on Amazon. However, if you’d like other types, an assortment of options and to see good quality photos of each style to help give you ideas, check out Decorative Ceiling Tiles.

What you’ll need:

• Styrofoam tiles (purchase some extras just for mistakes and backups)
• Liquid Nail glue
• Caulk gun
• Thumb tacks
• Box cutter
• Soft-felt tip pen
• Steel ruler or straight edge
• Cutting board large enough for the tiles
• A Light fixture of your choosing (Consult with a licensed electrician about the Wattage rating of your current fixture)

Instructions:

1. To begin, have a licensed electrician remove your current light fixture and make safe the area you will be working around.
2. Starting where the removed the light fixture is located (this should be the center of the room), place your first tile, by cutting out a hole for your light fixture would go in the middle of the tile.
3. Applying ample amounts of the liquid glue to the back of the tile, place it on the ceiling, firmly pressing to ceiling.
4. Continue placing and gluing tiles. Whenever, you have four tiles that meet each other, take a thumb tack, and pin it in the center of the corners of the tiles (do not pierce the tiles; this will act as a holding device (see photo).
5. Next, work your way out placing and gluing until you get to the boarders of the room.
6. When you get to the edges of the room, you’ll need to cut down your tiles. To do so, flip the tile to the back side and place it up against the wall. Using the soft-felt tip pen mark the portion you would like to cut (this will be the gap between the already place tile and the wall).
7. Place the tile on the cutting board, using the steel ruler or straight edge mark off a straight line.
8. Using your box cutter, cut down the line removing the extra tile. Place and glue, then repeat until room is completely tiled.
9. Trim out the room. Let dry overnight. Remove thumb tacks.
10. Do final touch coat of paint.
11. Finally, have a licensed electrician install the light fixture

Pro Tip – I suggest pre-painting the tiles before placing them on the ceiling as they are easier to paint on the ground. Important Note: do not use spray paint. It will eat through the Styrofoam causing it to bubble and warp.  Use a water based latex paint or whatever the tile manufacturer recommends.

 

Part Two: Psychology of Ceilings:

The lab results are in:

Did you know ceiling height can affect your behavior? “Researchers found that subjects occupying a room with ten-foot ceilings scored higher on creativity assessment tests than subjects who performed the same exercises under eight-foot ceilings.” (Joyner, 2020) With the higher ceilings people, “will tend to think more freely, more abstractly . . . They might process more abstract connections between objects in a room, whereas a person in a room with an 8-foot ceiling will be more likely to focus on specifics.” (Ceiling height can affect how a person thinks, feels and acts, 2007)

Don’t have ten-foot ceilings? Sean Joyner of Archinect.com has a superb blog for techniques to trick the eye into thinking the ceiling is taller, click here to check it out.

Your body, your thoughts . . . and ceilings:

Psychiatrist, author, researcher, and educator Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains that, “Research has found that the way that you hold your body determines how you feel. If you sit like this (shoulders raised and tightened towards the ears) you will be an uptight person, your thoughts will be uptight, you’ll hate yourself, because you cannot feel joyful . . . when you hold your hands like this (arms open towards the sky) it’s the gesture of joy . . . Very simply, the way that you hold your body to a large degree will determine what will happen in your mind.” (Kolk, 2015)

Interestingly, in the neck is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, “this muscle is your muscle of curiosity and when you’re curious about something you stretch this muscle . . . Put your shoulders back, breathe from the top of your lungs, stick out your neck . . . This position is incompatible with hatred . . . when you sit like that a lot, life becomes a much gentler business.” (Kolk, 2015)

Well, what do ceilings do? A beautifully done ceiling can cause you to look up and thereby stretch your sternocleidomastoid muscle. Cathedrals in the Middle Ages in Europe illustrate this effect where, “the central nave of many of the great cathedrals of the world . . . are extraordinarily tall—as high as 156 feet in one case. And what could be more abstract than contemplating the divine?” (Joyner, 2020) Below is a ceiling in the La Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, Spain. I don’t know about you, but when looking at the photo of the ceiling I can feel my neurons firing excitedly.

 

So, treasured reader, our ceiling can be a space in our daily life that encourages us to raise our spirits and minds. If you would like, let us test it for ourselves. Go back and look at the before and after photos of each room. How did the before pictures make you feel? Maybe a little anxious? Closed in? What about the after photos? Let me know in the comments.

 

References

Ceiling height can affect how a person thinks, feels and acts. (2007, April 25). Retrieved from ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070424155539.htm

Joyner, S. (2020, April 15). The psychology of high ceilings and creative work spaces. Retrieved from Archinect.com: https://archinect.com/features/article/150193563/the-psychology-of-high-ceilings-and-creative-work-spaces

Kolk, B. v. (2015, May 22). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. Retrieved from CenterScene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53RX2ESIqsM&t=1s