Decorating & Design
How A Dramatic Statement Ceiling Can Create A Major Design Moment
Updated on April 23, 2025
Things are definitely looking up. Designers are focussing on the upper reaches of rooms, lavishing them with details like wallpaper, contrasting paint, striking mouldings and textural treatments. When done right, the effect can be artfully dramatic and ultra-luxe. These standout statement ceiling examples demonstrate how designers make “the fifth wall” a major design moment.
This Toronto dining room is enveloped by reeded wood but it’s particularly effective on the ceiling. The rich texture creates interest and warmth, and it’s mirrored by trippy, Escher-like graphic wood floor tiles.
Free-flowing ceiling wallpaper by Lindsay Cowles — based on her abstract expressionist paintings — adds a shot of colour in this white dining room. The woven oversized pendants draw even more focus, creating an artful effect in this Toronto home designed by Ali Budd.
Jackie Kai Ellis had an epiphany when she was putting the final design touches on her Vancouver condo. “I bought this amazing piece of art,” she says. “When I hung it above the couch, I realized that all the colours of the spray marks on the ceiling match the colours in the painting.”
Pink grasscloth-covered ceilings, blue walls and a custom sofa are true maximalist moves in this living room. An unexpected hue and the subtle texture of the grasscloth makes this ceiling a standout.
Designer Colette van den Thillart glazed the ceiling in her client’s home to mimic gold tea paper, a type of hand-gilded wall covering where gold leaf is applied to a variety of bases, including handmade Chinese rice paper and Indian tea paper (or silk). The glazed treatment creates a textured and reflective surface.
In this Toronto home’s dark bedroom by designer Cynthia Ferguson, the wallpaper ceiling is repeated on the toss pillows for a polished effect. “In a small room, repetition is important to keep the patterns from overwhelming,” says Cynthia of her bedroom’s twinning drapery and headboard fabric.
If this foyer had been painted white, it would have never had the same impact. Adding details like trompe-l’oeil painted tassels gives a super playful, circus-tent effect.
A wallpapered ceiling with a metallic pattern tempers a colour-drenched periwinkle dining room. The abstracted floral design mimics a chrysanthemum, and the garden feel is further played up by a chandelier with grape-like orbs.
Designer James Davie chose an unusual cork ceiling for this home’s luxurious, classical library, which is anchored by panelled walls in a darker finish. The whale oil chandelier draws the eye up to the textured ceiling: the block design mimics the boxy panelling and moulding.
Designed by Colette van den Thillart, this dining room features a deep blue lacquered ceiling that reflects light and is a moody accompaniment to the Gracie hand-painted waves wallpaper. The effect is theatrical and incredibly luxe.
House & Home