10 ft for me because the extra couple of feet overhead tends to make the room feel much more spacious and let's you do interesting things with your ceiling that you really can't do with 8ft ceilings.

You didn't ask but I wouldn't do a 2-story living room unless I had an absolutely terrific view that demanded soaring windows or the room was at least 600 to 750 sq feet. Probably even then I'd use a vaulted ceiling where the ceiling at the edge of the room is lower and then slants up to peak at 16ft to 20 ft high.

Many (dare I say MOST) 2-story rooms with flat ceilings wind up with echo problems which make you feel like you're sitting at the bottom of a well when you're trying to have a conversation in the room. And they can be extremely difficult to heat in the winter since warm air rises.

Heating high-ceiling rooms aren't a problem if you opt for radiant floor heating as we did. By distributing the heat evenly throughout the floor surface, the warm air cannot rise to the ceiling because the cold air above it can't find a way to get underneath it to take its place. Overlooking our living room (19' ceiling), we have a catwalk connecting two upstairs rooms we seldom use and don't heat in winter. In the winter, the temperature up there is ten degrees cooler than down below in the living room.

Radiant flooring is a costly decision and doesn't make sense just to make high ceilings work better for you. But there are lots of other advantages, too.

Curious as to why 8ft. OR 10ft.? Have you considered 9? Our house has 9ft. ceilings, however, it is only one level. I like the 9ft. as it is just a little more area and makes the rooms look spacious too. But if I had to choose and if the area was good size I would choose the 8.
If the rooms seem small I would go for the 10.

10' definitely. I didn't think anybody still built houses with 8' ceilings. Don't forget however, if you have 10' ceilings you pretty much must use 8' doors, or else it will look funny with WAY too much space above the top of the doors. This will in turn force you to use taller windows in order to match the door height. Something to think about.

Don't worry about heating. The thing that causes heat stratification is air infiltration. Drafty houses have hot upper floors. A modern tight house should only have about a 2 to 3 degree temperature difference from top to bottom, no matter how high the ceiling is. Counter-intuitive, but true.

You don't give much detail such as the size or layout of your house so my answer is very general. I would go with 10 ft. That extra area of space adds so much to the room. I would have a hard time going back to 8 ft.

As a possible dissenting voice I would say it depends on the size of the room. I've lived in 14' 10' 8' and 7'6"

14' and 10' can feel like I am in a toaster slot if the proportions aren't right, just like a huge room with an 8' feels like the ceiling is pressing down.

I agree with the person who said think about 9'. Most rooms that could handle 8 can also handle 9. Ten may be pushing it for some footprints.

I wondered, also, why you aren't considering 9. We have 9 ft on the main floor and 8 ft on our 2nd floor. I think 10 would seem too high for my personal taste and feeling for our home, and like already mentioned, require taller doors and windows to look right. 9 ft walls are so common now that it's easy to find building materials sized appropriately.

Best wishes with whatever you decide.

We went with 10'. As mentioned, the doors and windows must be taller to look good...doubles the price of the doors, windows aren't quite as extra-costly. Here in cent Fl, we do notice the air stratification issue. In the summer (9 months here) it's a great advantage as you are moving around in the lower, cooler air. Winter, especially this extra cold one, has been noticeably less comfortable. Running a ceiling fan to return the warm air down doesn't yield good results since the wind chill effect negates any warmth you recover. We still enjoy the spacious feeling we get compared to our old 8' ceiling home.

I have had 8, 9 and now have 10 ft. I love the 10 ft. even in smaller rooms, it is so airy and elegant. We got great insulation and good windows and have no problems heating, our bills are quite low.

Another vote for 9 - it creates a feeling of space without that "oh wow - you have 10 ft ceilings' sensation. I'd rather my rooms just feel airy without an obvious sensation of height. But maybe if I was 6'2, I'd feel diffently!!!

We built a very large home. In the formal areas, dining & living, entry, all the ceilings are 8ft. Love the way it feels when you walk in. It is warm and inviting. I did not want it to feel cavernous or McMansion like.
In my current home (moving soon) we have a 2 story living room and I am not a fan, so definitely wanted to change that.

I believe 8 ft is too low and 10 ft is too high. You might want to consider something in between.

Speaking from a technical perspective, a 2-story house with 10 foot ceilings downstairs will require a floor area for the stairs that is about 3 feet longer horizontally, certainly more than 2 feet extra, than is required for 8 foot ceilings. How does that work in your floor plan? And for many types of heating systems the temperature gradient from floor to ceiling will be greater with higher ceilings.

I recall one house built on speculation that took almost two years to sell, before any crisis. Small lot, builder wanted to put 5 detached houses on a tract and thus each house was on small lot. Put high ceilings up and down on two-story house. Nice house, but was so badly out of proportion, far too tall for the base area. Looked more like a free-standing elevator shaft.

My house is all one story and all 10' and we love it. The feeling is wide and open even in the small rooms.

we have a two story flat ceiling great room and love it-we don't have any heating or cooling problems and we live in Wisconsin which gets cold winters and can have hot summers. Our two story great room did have an echo before we moved the furniture in, but when the furniture and area rugs went in the echo was gone. We have 9' ceilings every where else on the first floor, including our master bedroom, and 8' ceilings on the second floor which has two bedrooms, an office and loft. I'd go with higher than 8' in the living areas on the first floor. I love our two story great room even though our only view is the trees in the back yard. The windows at the second floor level provide a a great view from the loft on the second floor. I like 8' ceiling for bedrooms, but if you want a fan or ceiling light that is going to hang down more than a few inches I would go with higher than 8' ceilings in the bedrooms too.

We have a very similar situation as carolyn53562.
We have the two story great room with 9 foot ceilings on the first floor. The master has a trey ceiling that goes from 9-11 feet.
The second floor has 8 foot ceilings. I really wish I had 9 foot ceilings upstairs though.
I would not do any less than 9 feet on the first floor.

I think it depends on the room sizes. Or neighbors have 10' ceilings and I think the ceilings seem a little high in relation to the size of the rooms. The ceiling in our master bedroom is about 10', but it's a large room (about 17x20). We dropped it lower in the master because I didn't like the 10' in there.

sue, you're right, in some rooms the high ceiling can make the room feel slimmer, for lack of a better description. In the guest bath that is narrow I went ahead and painted the ceiling the same color as the walls and that helped to cozy it up and give the feeling that the ceiling was lower.

We're very happy with 9' flat throughout. Exceptions are a bowed section in the Kitchen to accommodate large casements and archtop over the sink; cathedrals in Library and Guest BR (Wouldn't do cathedral in a BR again.); 12' in Master Bath.

One of the deciding factors to teardown rather than remodel was that the old house had 8' ceilings.

I'm writing from our Maui condo, built in 1991, which has 8' ceilings -- and ceiling fans. How much nicer this would all look with higher ceilings (and fans)!

If you've never been in a room that was badly proportioned due to too-high ceilings, you may not really believe there is such a thing. But there is, and it feels awful. Just very wrong -- but hard to put your finger on why.

As a general rule, 9' is safe and comfortable for just about any room size. Higher ceilings can be are nice in large rooms; and 8' ceilings are wonderful for cozier spaces.

One trick we've learned in this house is that a small area with lower ceilings at the entry to a larger space really 'opens up' the room with 8' ceilings. Our downstairs hallway has 7'6" ceilings, which we thought was a problem until we lived there a while. But now the 8' ceilings in the kitchen and den at either end feel much nicer, and the 'transition spaces' really function as transitions.

Have a 2 story house. Upstairs is all 9'. Downstairs mostly 10' -- foyer is 20', great room 11'4", study 18'. 8' ceilings seem claustrophobic now.

Living in a house with 7'6" ceilings, I can say height is better.
I've got over 10 feet on the lower floors (more for mechanical considerations) and 8' on the top floor. Even at 8' you are limitted in lighting fixutres and ceiling fans.

You need to consider the exterior look of the house too. Some houses look wonderful with the extra height in the 1st floor, but some end up looking very stretched and out of proportion. If the floorplan inside is open or if the rooms are large, 10' ceilings will look nice (as will vaulted). But if the rooms are small then 8' ceilings may be more appropriate.

I have a couple of rooms with 17" ceilings. But that's sort of an odd artifact.

Our old house had 8 ft ceilings except cathedral in FR - which was awful to heat. So new house we built 8ft everywhere (had option for 9ft on ground floor). I wish we had gone for 9ft on ground floor b/c sometimes it feels claustrophobic with only 13ft wide room. Though I don't know about windows and doors (standard 6'8" door might be OK), I know we would have had to put in taller kitchen upper cabinets and those are more $$$. Maybe a bump is enough - like 8ft kitchen and 9ft FR? Or tray ceiling in DR with chandy in the middle?

DH's boss has a trophy home with really tall (more than 10ft?) ceilings and his powder room is like an elevator shaft. So I wouldn't do tall ceilings everywhere.