High Ceiling in Home Designs

How high is high? Typically a standard ceiling height is 28 course (2400mm) and then a “high-ceiling” is 31 course (2657mm). For general living spaces and bedrooms, our minimum ceiling height at Weststyle is 2.6m (bathrooms/laundry’s/stores = 2.4m) and our ”high-ceiling” homes can be anywhere from 3m upwards. In a void area, this can be up to 6m.

High ceilings are definitely a more premium feature, not only are you adding internal height to your home but you’re increasing the overall size of your house and thus adding costs. High ceilings are a “feature” which means it’s not necessary to have them throughout your entire home, a more affordable option is to lift the ceiling in main living spaces and then bring them down to a reasonable height in minor bedrooms and bathrooms. In fact, 2.4-2.6m ceiling heights are often more suited to these areas.

There are definitely advantages of opting for a high ceiling home, areas with high ceilings allow for larger windows letting in more natural light and more options of designed cross ventilation. They can add a sense of luxury to a space, opening up options to house larger artworks on walls, to hang larger feature lights etc. There are also more design options for cabinetry, increasing storage capacity by taking cabinetry all the way to the ceiling or by floating cabinetry items away from the floor and ceiling to create more of a furniture piece style design.

Depending on the space you can create intrigue and drama with a high ceiling, also a sense of grandeur. It can create breathing space in an intimate living room to pause and reflect. Disadvantages are mostly linked to costs, by adding more houses you are adding more costs. With higher ceilings can come limited roof space which may impact air conditioning designs. More lighting may be required with a larger volume, and depending on your material palette you may be creating unwanted echoes.

It is very important to consider proportion when increasing ceiling heights, it is essential that your design elements such as windows, doors, cabinetry etc are in proportion to the internal volume. If your budget does not permit high ceilings in all areas of your home then consider your cornice details, the use of a P50 Shadowline or square set cornice is modern and can give the illusion of more height and space. Higher ceilings are more commonly asked for by clients, it’s on their list of wants.

As mentioned – high / feature ceilings are a ‘nice to have’. Generally, we will design our ceiling heights to be as high as possible to create that sense of spaciousness in our homes. However we are often faced with challenges during planning – typically, for a concealed (flat) roof, the maximum building height permissible is 6 metres. Once structural and service heights are eliminated, sometimes we are not left with much internal height. As a response to this, we create coffered ceilings which allow services to run within the bulkhead whilst also providing higher ceilings to a room.

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