High Above

INDYSTAR.com: Like a growing number of homeowners paying extra attention to the space over their heads, Cronin likes to incorporate the ceilings into his room design. “It’s the biggest space you have to work with,” says Cronin, who designs sound studios. Cronin’s not the only one with an overhead fixation.
“Ceilings are huge,” says decorative painter Kathy Wear, whose work with interior designer Joni Wohlfahrt has won home show awards in the Nashville area. “For so long, ceilings were just white. Now you very rarely see white ceilings. It started with color and has worked its way to finishings.”
Designer Marcia Knight says fancy ceilings aren’t entirely new. The Biltmore, the Vanderbilt homestead in Asheville, N.C., built in 1895, has many fabulous ceilings, she points out. But what is relatively new is outfitting ceilings atop really tall walls, which can tower 18 to 24 feet in some of the grandest new homes. In terms of aesthetics, it’s almost necessary.
“If you have walls that go straight up, you don’t want to go to a flat top,” she says. “It would be pretty boring.”
“People want something unique,” Wear says. “They don’t want to go crazy on walls, which can overpower a room. They’d rather concentrate on the ceiling as the main focal point.”
Look up! There’s cool stuff on the ceiling [INDYSTAR.com]