The textural qualities of the wood ceiling, paired with the drama of creative lighting solutions, give this Melville Thomas Architects library unparalelled warmth and character. Photo by Anne Gummerson
”The key thing ceilings do is help define space visually, but they’re more than decorative,” says Joseph Gilday, marketing director for Silver Spring, Maryland’s Gilday Renovations. “You walk into a space, and it either invites you to stay, or it repels you. So when you have good design, a room is visually appealing, yet it’s more than that: it has vitality. Ceilings can lend vitality to a space.”
While there are many goals in ceiling design, two of the most important are to create emphasis and to establish the purpose of a space. “If you have a room that is not just bigger, but has a ceiling that’s a little bit different, you’ve emphasized the importance of this room,” explains Bill Sutton, principal of Sutton Yantis Associates Architects in Vienna, Virginia. “[Architects] want to choreograph these spaces, and one way of doing that is by emphasizing a room with a particular kind of ceiling.”
Gilday Renovations layered multiple crown moldings together as a way to minimize the vertical dimensions.
Mark Giarraputo, principal of Bethesda, Maryland’s Studio Z Design Concepts, says that his firm begins the process of custom home design by asking the homeowner: “how are you going to use this room?” From there, his team can design the ceiling in a way that delineates where certain furnishings and architectural elements will go.
Ceilings can also establish the formality of a room. “Informal spaces are not as tailored; they are a bit more rustic by nature.For these, we can use rough sawn pieces of wood, beadboard applications, or maybe one big piece of crown molding instead of three, and they could be stained instead of painted. Those darker colors will bring the size of the room down and help the room to feel less formal,” says Giarraputo.
Clever application of crown moldings will visually affect the dimensions of a room, also. “The crown molding defines the space,” notes Tom Gilday, vice president of Gilday Renovations. “It tends to relate the ceiling a little bit more to the room rather than having 90-degree angles.”
Informal spaces tend to have lower ceilings, while formal living areas are generally higher, but this is not always the case. The materials used often dictate what kind of feel a room has. Sutton refers to a kitchen he designed with vaulted ceilings—while the space has a certain grandeur to it because of its height and the dramatic vaulted shape, the use of unpainted, wooden beams on the same ceiling brings a more relaxed vibe to the room. He likes the use of wood for some ceiling applications because “it lends itself to architectural interest—you really feel it even if you’re not looking directly at it.”
Material choice and ceiling type can also help define the overarching architectural style of a house. “Cables that are exposed and perhaps might be made of stainless steel or some sort of oil rubbed bronze turnbuckle and cable…can make the room feel very contemporary, or it could be a turn of the 19th century detail like they used to have in old barns—it works with multiple applications depending on the materials and kind of metal chosen,” Giarraputo explains.
Studio Z Design Concepts installed painted beadboard between individual coffers, adding texture and depth to this family room.
Textural applications are boundless: homeowners can choose gold leafing for a subtle texture, add coffers with crossed beams, or even create dimensional texture with elements like barrel ceilings or various lighting effects. “When you have details like coffers in the ceilings, they add visual interest and also offer a way of getting lighting in there less conspicuously,” adds Tom Gilday. “A DC-area home we recently completed has a recessed light in every coffer.”
Another trend that Sutton sees is a direct result of today’s homeowners being increasingly conscious about living less wastefully. “[A] prevailing trend is that the era of these two-story [family rooms] seems to have ended. Generally, people don’t want to be [energy or space] wasteful. We’re dealing with more restrained volumes in the house right now, but the homes are still not simple and flat everywhere. There’s architectural interest in the right places.”
Regardless of the form or function of a particular room, the ceiling chosen for it undeniably affects the general atmosphere within it: even ceilings that aren’t immediate showstoppers play a major role in how we use a room and how we feel when we are in it. “Ceiling design is not an afterthought,” Sutton says decidedly. “It’s something that should be looked at from the onset of the design of the house.”
Annliese Scott is the Assistant Editor of ChesapeakeHome.
Contacts:
Brennan + Company Architects: brennanarch.com or 410-788-2289
Gilday Renovations: gilday.com or 301-565-4600
Melville Thomas Architects: mtarx.com or 410-433-4400
Studio Z Design Concepts: studiozdc.com or 301-951-4391
Sutton Yantis Associates Architects: syaa.com or 703-734-9733
