Painting Your 5th Wall, Part One
Must you paint your ceiling white? Is this some unwritten law of home remodeling? Are you going to stick with the tried and true? The staid and boring? The safe and reliable? Or are you ready to challenge yourself and experiment with some color other than white on your ceiling?
Of all the ideas in a paint/design gallery, white is just the first one. After that, there is the possibilities of tints in white which will supply a very subtle color difference to a room without shaking things up too much. And then there is the possibility of going completely different and having no hint of white at all, or just as an accent.
But let’s start with why white has come to dominate ceiling colors before we explore not using white.
There are some very good reasons why homeowners have been painting their ceilings white:
- Reflects Light: Ceilings reflects light as much, or more, than the other four walls in a room. Changing the color of your ceiling can greatly affect the amount of light in the room.
- Illusion of Depth: A white ceiling gives the illusion of depth; dark ceilings have a visual “stop” point. But if you have 10-, 12-foot, or even higher ceilings, you may actually desire a visual stop, to prevent the room from feeling cavernous.
- Easy To Do: When you buy ceiling paint, it’s already tinted white. The paint companies assume that you will want white.
And when it comes to White paint, it’s not just any white, it has to be FLAT white ceiling paint that seems to have all the advantages:
- High degree of light bounce, giving your entire room more light (re-iterating above).
- The limitless vista of white. When you look at a well-painted flat white surface, it appears to go on infinitely. This gives the room the feeling of having more space.
- Flat, as opposed to satin, eggshell, glossy, or otherwise, further enhances the appearance of a limitless vista. Reflections of light on a ceiling, due to any type of gloss, will tell the eye that this is where the surface “stops.”
So now that we have looked at why you might have painted your ceiling white in the past, next we will talk about what colors you might consider in the future. Remember all this talk of a basic white ceiling is in the past, in my next blog we are going to delve into the world of the 5th wall and all the new trends awaiting your ceiling. It’s going to be very exciting, so be sure to get your appointment with your Andy onCall handyman scheduled, so when you are ready to begin your painting project we will be ready too!
