(Or for our Pig-Latin speaking friends: Ix-nay on eeling-say ite-whay.)
Please don't ever agree to use something called "ceiling white" on your ceiling. Horrifyingly, Benjamin Moore actually makes a color called "ceiling white." (I'm not going to give you the number, because you should never use it. I won't even dignify it with capital letters.)
Don't leave it to the painter; give him or her an actual color name. If you've chosen an off-white for your trim color, a safe bet is to use the same color in a flat finish on the ceiling. Billy Baldwin used to add some of the wall color to white for his ceilings. Took the edge off, he said.
You shouldn't be afraid to wrap the wall color - especially if it's light - onto the ceiling. It will look different on the horizontal and vertical planes.
And using different colors that have the same value (intensity) on the walls and the ceiling gives you an interesting but cohesive look -
A friend's mother got carried away with the paint colors in her home's basement apartment, and she painted virtually every plane a different pastel, including the ceilings. Remarkably, it worked. She declared, "I will never, EVER, paint a ceiling white again."
Amen, sister.
Pictures by Eric Roth, taken from "Susan Sargent's The Comfort of Color."
September 25, 2008
Nix on "ceiling white"
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2 Gentle Readers have this to say::
Having been a decorative painter and color maven for many years, I used to feel the same way about white ceilings, "what a waste of a big space just to leave white..."
But recently I'm preferring super clean, minimalist interiors, and a variety of creams & whites. BM Ceiling White is actually made up specially refractive white pigments, bouncing more light down than regular paint, is super flat, and a good neutral white. Never thought I'd say this, but its now my favorite ceiling "color."
I agree - white ceilings often look too stark. I have had several rooms with light blue ceilings that looked great and even seemed to positively affect my mood. The paint colors I used have been discontinued, so I will list Benjamin Moore colors that are similar to the paints I used.
Bathroom: trim & lower walls (beadboard)-Super White 02 (a pure white), upper walls-Lighthouse 2018-60 (a muted yellow), ceiling-Northern Air 1676 (a slightly greyed blue)
Living room in the 90's: trim-Decorator's White 01, walls-(parchment look paint effect) Barley 199 (a straw color), with a colorwash of the trim paint over it, ceiling-Polar Sky 1674
However, I did have a miss with one colored ceiling. When I repainted my living room a coppery brown (Laura Ashley 'Old Gold 6' from Lowes) with a sage green ceiling (Benjamin Moore 'Cedar Grove' 444) the combination made me feel queasy. I ended up repainting it an inoffensive light tan (Benjamin Moore 'Lighthouse Landing' 1044).
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