Furnishing high-ceilinged rooms and period homes

The lower third becomes a surface

In a high-ceilinged room, everything ordinary stands in the lower third, and above it a large empty wall begins. The room splits into an inhabited and an uninhabited part.

What helps is at least one tall element that connects the levels: a shelf reaching close to the ceiling, a large picture, a tall curtain, a small tree. It is not about filling the wall, but about giving the eye a bridge upwards.

A single such element per wall is enough, and it belongs on the wall with the largest free surface – usually the one opposite the window. Several tall elements side by side cancel the effect out again, because then there is no longer any contrast between low and high.

If you are planning a shelf up to the ceiling, you should deliberately fill the upper compartments more lightly. Dense, heavy rows right at the top make the structure look top-heavy. Getting airier towards the top is what the eye expects anyway.

Lights can hang lower

The distance between a pendant light and the tabletop is 60–70 cm (23.6–27.6 in). This value is based on the table and not on the ceiling, so it does not change with the ceiling height. In a high-ceilinged room this simply means: the light needs a long drop and can come a long way down into the room, otherwise it floats in the middle of nowhere.

Within this range, in high-ceilinged rooms you tend to be closer to 70 cm (27.6 in) than to 60 cm (23.6 in). The lights here are usually larger, and a large shade needs a little more air above the table so that it does not feel oppressive and the view across the table stays clear.

And it can be larger than you might at first think. A shade that would be bulky in a normal room looks appropriate at a ceiling height of 350 cm (11.5 ft). Several lights at different heights that together form a vertical group work just as well.

More important than any single light is light at several heights. In a high-ceilinged room, a single ceiling source sits so far from the floor that little arrives at the bottom and the room stays gloomy despite the lamp being on. Three to four points of light on different levels – pendant light above the table, floor lamp beside the seat, table lamp on a chest of drawers, wall light at eye level – fill the lower, actually used part of the room. Warm light and several small sources work more reliably than a single strong one.

Pictures stay at eye level

The common rule puts the centre of a picture at about 145–150 cm (57.1–59.1 in), in other words at the eye level of a standing person. This height applies in a period home just the same, because it is based on the viewer and not on the ceiling. A picture that hangs at two metres (6.6 ft) for the sake of the ceiling height is uncomfortable to look at.

The empty wall above is therefore dealt with not by hanging higher but through format or quantity: a considerably larger picture, a portrait format instead of a landscape one, or a group that is built up vertically. With a group, it is the centre of the whole arrangement that sits at the 145–150 cm (57.1–59.1 in) mentioned, not the centre of the lowest picture.

Above a sofa or a chest of drawers, the relationship to the furniture comes into play: around 25–30 cm (9.8–11.8 in) of distance to the top edge, and the width of the picture stays narrower than the piece of furniture. In high-ceilinged rooms the temptation to increase this distance is great – yet in doing so the picture loses its anchor and hangs on its own.

Only soft things help against echo

High-ceilinged rooms with large windows and hard floors echo. That is not a cosmetic flaw, but the reason why such rooms often feel uncomfortable even though they look beautiful.

Only soft, porous surfaces work against it: a large rug, heavy curtains over the full height, upholstered furniture, books. A wool rug of sufficient size noticeably changes the acoustics of a room.

The connection is simple: the greater the volume of air, the more soft surface a room needs in order to sound calm. At a height of 380 instead of 250 cm (12.5 instead of 8.2 ft), the same floor area holds around half as much volume again, while the floor as a damping surface stays the same size. A rug alone is therefore rarely enough.

It becomes effective when several soft surfaces come together and are distributed across different sides of the room: floor, window, seating, a filled wall of shelves. Two smooth walls facing each other throw the sound back and forth – breaking up one of them achieves more than twice the amount of material in a single place. The rug should be large enough for the seating to stand on it with its front legs, so that it does not lie as an island between them.

Leave period details as they are

Stucco, double doors, herringbone parquet and tall skirting boards already bring structure with them. In such a room, restrained furnishing is not a sacrifice, but the only chance for the architecture to remain visible.

In practice this means: calm forms, few patterns, material instead of decoration. The ornament is already there.

This also applies to colour. Stucco and mouldings depend on the shadows along their edges, and a very dark or heavily patterned paint finish swallows exactly these shadows. The wall can certainly be given colour, as long as the ceiling and stucco mouldings stay lighter – the height is not lost, because the eye is led further upwards instead of being stopped.

The placement of the furniture also plays a part. In front of double doors and tall skirting boards it is worth leaving a small gap instead of pushing furniture flush against them: a few centimetres are enough for the skirting to remain visible as a continuous line and for the door to come into its own at full height. Old floors also do not tolerate permanent point loads – wide glides or felt pads distribute the weight on historic parquet better than narrow feet.

Curtains over the full height

Nothing emphasises height as easily as textile that runs from the ceiling to the floor. Curtains that end just above the window frame turn a tall window into a normal one.

The rod or track therefore sits as close to the ceiling as possible and not on the frame, and it extends about 15–20 cm (5.9–7.9 in) beyond the window opening on the left and right. That way, when open, the fabric finds space beside the glass and takes away no daylight – a noticeable difference in period homes with deep reveals.

For a curtain that shows a proper fall, allow two to two and a half times the length of the rod in fabric width. In length, the fabric either ends just above the floor, with a gap of 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in), or it deliberately rests slightly on the floor. Anything in between just looks too short.

The amount of fabric needed is greater and the installation more involved – but it is the intervention with the greatest visible effect in a period home.