Wish your ceilings were packed with personality? Well, for this month’s Been There Done That feature, Joanne Mooney of the Instagram account @joannemooney_ tells us about her striking coloured ceilings. It turns out wallpapering the fifth wall is much harder than it looks…

Joanne, how did you come up with the idea to try coloured ceilings?

“My ceilings were plain white before I painted them. When I decorated my spare bedroom, I looked up at the ceiling and thought it was missing something. I was thinking it’s like the fifth wall – why do we always paint them white? I made a donut sprinkle stencil and painted the ceiling. After that, I was looking at the other ceilings in my home and decided they all needed something other than white paint.”

How did you find the inspiration?

“I had seen a lot of homes on Pinterest with wallpaper on the ceiling. This inspired me to plan a design for the ceilings in my home, plus colour has always inspired me and I also have a weakness for stripes. For the donut sprinkle coloured ceiling, I made the stencil myself. I knew what design I wanted but I couldn’t source a stencil. So I made one and it was quite easy.”

Tell us more about the other designs…

“I have the donut sprinkles on the ceiling in my spare bedroom. It’s always a good conversation with my guests who come to stay.

“My studio/craft room has wide pink stripes and the rest of the room is painted white. The sun shines in there in the evenings and the pink stripes just make me happy!

“Then I have orange stripes on the utility room ceiling. I had painted the walls and woodwork dark navy and I felt I needed a pop of colour in there.

“For the striped ceilings, I used frog tape. Tip: make sure you measure the area, stick on the frog tape and paint. The wider the stripes the quicker it is to finish because there is less painting. It is harder to paint a ceiling when you have gravity working against you.

“For the downstairs loo, when I wallpapered the wall, it just made sense to wallpaper the ceiling too.”

Did you face any challenges?

“I found wallpapering the ceiling hard. I didn’t get any help doing my coloured ceilings. So I am proud to say I did it all by myself and I enjoyed every minute of the process. I found using paint easier than wallpaper. Imagine you have gravity working against you hanging wallpaper.”

Joanne’s top tips

“My advice to anyone thinking about painting their ceiling is to do it. Don’t think of it as the ceiling – think of it as the fifth wall in a room. If you don’t like it you can paint over it. I think we are all just programmed to paint our ceilings white because we have always just left them white.”

• When designing coloured ceilings, make sure they tie in with the room. 
• Use frog tape as it’s better than regular masking tape. 
• Don’t be afraid to paint your ceilings the same colour as the walls. It’s so effective and you feel like the room is incapsulating you in a warm hug.
• For wallpapering ceilings, get someone to help you.
• Use a good ladder and prepare the ceilings first – it makes the job a bit easier.

So, did you love this feature on coloured ceilings? Then you’ll also enjoy our feature on decorating ideas for the ceiling.

About Post Author