I'm not sure what the ceiling is called, but will now search tray ceiling. We live in a 55+ development and everyone has these ceilings, actually in three rooms (LR, DR, MBR), but I haven't seen anyone add crown molding.

A friend of mine has a ceiling like that in her house in their family room. they also have the canned lights in the ceiling, but they don't have crown moulding, per se but rather molding that actually just out (rather than being vertical - not sure I'm explaining this well!) and they have lights on they inside of that moulding, and when they are turned on, it's beautiful.

Like this:

Very very dramatic, tibbrix. I think that much molding is too formal for our style, but I like the warmth that the lighting gives. We have 4 canned lights on dimmers, but never use them.

That's not their house, just to give you an idea and picture of what I was talking about. That lighting creates a really nice ambience!

Now that I know what type of ceiling this is, I found this picture which is similar to what I had in mind. They've painted the sloped part, which appears to be much larger than what I have, the same color as the walls. I'm thinking I would keep it the same as the flat ceiling. Any thoughts?

J. Hirsch Interior Design Portfolio · More Info

Dining Room Remodel · More Info

i like the example where the wall color goes up to the ceiling. That was my first thought when I saw your room.

Raz, it certainly would make the ceiling appear higher, don't you think? Now I've got ideas for my other two rooms with the ceilings. DH is not going to be happy, but that's what he gets for going to FL for a week while I have to work!

I think you are on the right track!

Real life example of 10 ft tray ceiling with crown. Not mine, but I like it because you get the spacious feeling of 10 ft height with the coziness of the 8 ft crown.

Thanks for the photo, Delilah!

If you do paint the wall color above the crown, I would suggest also painting the remainder of the ceiling something like 50% wall color and 50% white to soften the transition so that the white rectangle doesn't become your accent.

I like the 2nd picture nhbaskets posted best, where all of the ceiling is the same but it's not bright white. It looks the softest to me, and compliments the ceiling and the trim/crown best in my opinion. In that picture it looks to me the ceiling is probably 25% wall color - although it's not exactly the wall color so maybe it's more accurate to say 25% lighter than the walls?

Alot of the houses in my mid-1960's neighborhood have tray ceilings with plaster molding. The molding defines the tray. When I remodeled the master suite, I removed the plaster molding and had new crown molding installed. The ceiling and walls were painted the same color to deemphasize the tray. I like the way it turned out. I could have left the molding in place and just painted it all, but one corner was water damaged and plaster moldings don't come off without breaking.

I don't have a good shot of the whole room. Here's a picture right after it was painted.

Yeah, I like it all one color the best, whether the same as the walls if they aren't really dark, like zmith, or a little lighter version of the wall color. It just doesn't look right to me when the ceiling becomes a decorative element for it to be bright white.