How to Decorate a Large Room With High Ceilings

Paint the walls and ceiling. White walls and a white ceiling make big rooms look huge. Choose a warm color for your walls a shade lighter than your desired color. Home furnishings specialist Linda Adler says that colors look darker and more intense when they cover a large area. Paint the ceiling a darker color than the walls to give it the appearance of being lower.

Add furniture appropriate for the square footage of the room; furniture should fit the floor plan, not the height of the room. Place furniture in a way that allows for a natural traffic flow through the room. Interior designer Darcy Stratmann says the key to decorating a room is keeping scale and balance in check. Measure the dimensions of the room and each piece of furniture, and draw a scale model on a piece of paper to make sure your furniture fits the space. Furniture placement should allow 4 feet for major traffic paths. Smaller paths need to be just wide enough to allow the vacuum cleaner access, usually about 18 inches.

Add artwork as you would for any room. Don't place art as high on the wall as you can reach. Steve Appel of Nouveau Contemporary Goods suggests keeping a 9-foot sightline in mind for decorating. Only decorate the space below the 9-foot mark so that artwork and accessories are low enough for you to enjoy.