Design Tip for the month: Vaulted ceilings are a must and can easily be retro-fitted into older homes if there is an attic. These type of ceilings help “open up” and make the room feel physically “larger.” If you are lucky to find a home that has vaulted ceilings in the main room or throughout the house, take advantage of this opportunity to use color on the tall walls without making them feel like a dungeon. Use the correct proportionally sized furniture (often taller in size and sometimes wider). The lighting in the room should mostly come from natural light via windows or the clerestory type windows allowing you to use a mid-tone color on the walls.
If the lighting is poor, than do stay with the off whites or some light shade of the color you love. If you must have a dark or rich color use it on a an accent wall (and a hopefully a wall opposite of the natural lighting or on the narrow sides of the room). You can get away with the strong color on 2 walls but no more. Keep the main color consistent throughout the home and pretty near neutral or an easy color to blend other colors with when going into other smaller and specialized rooms.
The reason vaulted ceilings in rooms are special is that they do open up an interior living area. But sometimes just white or taupe colored walls can make this type of room “too open” making it uncomfortably “exposing” for some folks when they are trying to relax at home. Thus, picking darker mid tone colors is important to give the rooms a cozy and homey effect without one extreme or the other, either “too open” or “cellar-like dungeon.” —Crissy