Why designers want you to stop painting this ‘wall’ white

Interior designer Greg Natale calls it the “fifth wall”. As the focus on notions of home continues to sharpen, designers are doubling down on immersive spaces that feel both invigorating and cocooning. Now, they have turned their attention upwards.

Ceilings are having a design moment as the saturation trend, where colour extends from the skirting boards, up the walls and beyond, takes hold in residential environments.

This space designed by Robson Rak Architects & Interior Designers reinterprets the traditional plaster ceiling and finishes with a soft peach colour.Credit: Mark Roper

Once considered a “set and forget” surface of the room, painted in ubiquitous Ceiling White, the ceiling is now a designer’s canvas, with everything from decorative plasterwork and wallpaper to painted finishes and every colour in the fan deck.

In recent projects, Sydney-based Natale says there is barely a ceiling he has left untouched, whether it is adorned with intricate plasterwork or painted an eye-catching colour. To ignore this surface, he says, is to miss an opportunity to enhance the space.

“A lot of home owners forget about the ceiling and it becomes this flat white thing,” he says. “If you refer to it as a fifth wall you think about it differently.”

Interior designer Greg Natale has fully immersed himself in the colour saturation movement, opting for this striking ceiling.Credit: Anson Smart

He is not alone in his enthusiasm for colourful ceilings, with interior designers from around the country showcasing them in the Dulux Colour Awards finalists.

Dulux Colour expert Andea Lucena-Orr says colouring the ceiling can be a great technique to create intimacy in a room.

“If you’re looking for a cocooning feel, using colour on walls and ceilings will certainly achieve this,” she says. “If you have a darker room at home, which can be hard to work with, embracing colour on walls and the ceiling can really create a certain mood and ambience.”

Like white, using a colour at the lighter end of the spectrum on the ceiling will also allow light to bounce off it. And if reflecting light is key to what you are trying to achieve, you don’t need to stick to pastel paints. Among this year’s finalists, Flack Studio’s treatment of the living room ceiling in a Victorian High Country modernist house is a standout. Finished in brushed gold, it is at once elegant and comforting, creating a space that is both welcoming and sophisticated.

This brushed gold ceiling in this Victorian High Country house was designed by Studio Flak, another finalist in the Dulux Colour Awards.Credit: Anson Smart

Chris Rak and Kathryn Robson from Melbourne firm Robson Rak have taken the concept of a reflective ceiling a step further in their latest project in Malvern, which is still under construction, specifying mirrored panels for the living room ceiling.

“There’s a swimming pool very close to the room and putting the panels on means the ceiling comes alive with the reflections from the water,” Robson says.

Even their entry for the Dulux Colour Awards has taken an unorthodox approach to the ceiling, reinterpreting the traditional plasterwork ceiling with a contemporary pinwheel design to better integrate directional lighting tracks.

“We’re trying to remove things like downlights and air-con grills and get rid of them from the ceiling so the ceiling can be seen as a canvas and an extension of the walls,” says Robson. “People are becoming more interested in having fun with colour and texture.”

While they appear to be very of the moment, Rak points out colourful ceilings are nothing new.

“They have been doing murals on ceilings since the Renaissance, and they were designed to create depth. It’s been the practice for hundreds of years,” he says.

As designers and home owners are becoming more adventurous, says Rak, they are taking their cues from sophisticated bars and restaurants, which have traditionally been explored the more creative end of the design spectrum.

Interior designer Greg Natale says a plain white ceiling is a missed opportunity.Credit: Anson Smart

“That sense of theatre we created in hospitality environments is now being transferred into residential spaces.”

Lucena-Orr says, as with any colour choice, it comes down to personal taste and what you are hoping to achieve in the room.

“You have to really understand the overall look you are trying to achieve,” she says. “If you would love a cosy and cocooning space, using a darker colour on the ceiling and walls will help you create this.”

As with any space, colour will perform differently depending on the light. Lucena-Orr says the same colour may appear differently when painted on the wall and on the ceiling. The latest obsession with coloured ceilings, she says, makes sense in a world where so much is uncertain except the spaces we create for ourselves.

“With the current consumer sentiment with the cost-of-living crisis, it’s even more evident that we need to feel happy, safe and secure in own home. Colour can really help create atmosphere and is one of the most transformative and cost-effective changes you can make to your home.”

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