Ceiling white is basic. You can make a ceiling look higher by use of window treatments and furniture height.

You could also match the paint color to the walls (or a few shades lighter) which can help soften the transition from wall to ceiling. Major con is that then you have to repaint the ceiling when you paint the room. I think it's a nice look, but only did it in my small bathroom and not the other rooms.

To make a room look more open or airy, I use lighter less saturated yellows, blues, grays and so on for the walls. For the ceiling, I like to use the same color only a couple of shades lighter than the wall color. If the wall color is too light to do that (or even very dark) I would use a really soft creamy white. A soft creamy white will reflect light better than a stark ceiling white and offer a warmer feel to the room.

I did what caligirl did, in every single room in the house. Takes time to figure out the exact paint (or in my case, percentage of paint)..sampling is your friend.

That was one of the best decisions I made for my place even though I won't lie, was scary as hell especially as many rooms are not painted in light colors but more mid range, darker shades

If going that road-make sure you remember your colors for touching up etc..you can try and create account in your local store so they'd keep it all under your name..at the very least make a list. Name of the color, sheen, whether you used 100% of it or 75% or 50% (you can also go with similar shades insitead of going by percentage, but I found percentage easier to play with).

Another great way is keeping the ceiling white/light, and adding crown moldings in the ceiling color. The illusion of added height just jumps at you. That simple trick adds an imaginary foot to the real height, I swear.

I went with colors rather than moldings because we had a huge remodel, and costs had to be cut somewhere. Otherwise I planned on moldings in several rooms.

Skylights are obviously more expensive to install, but they make a huge difference in one's perception of the room..heigh, light, depth..So our house already had 4 (I think) skylights by the time we bought it..we added one more. If in the budget and making sense for the room in question(and possible at all-we have a one-storey so obviously was easier for us)-I'd recommend it as another great way of handling the height issue.