5 Ways You Can Raise Your Ceiling

Want to add a sense of roominess without expanding your home’s footprint? Raising the ceiling in a room—or the whole house—can create space, avoiding the need for a home addition. It’s a big job and not one that lends itself to DIY. However, considering the cost of raising a ceiling, it helps to know about the process before deciding whether or not a vaulted ceiling is right for you. 

There are several styles of raised ceilings to consider and many considerations for each type. Not the least of which is the construction style of your home. Here are five ways to increase the height of your ceilings that could work in your house.

1. Raise Your Conventional Ceiling

To add height to a room or throughout your home, you could consider simply raising the level of its conventional ceilings. The ceiling will be higher, but they’ll still meet the walls at the same 90-degree angle. It may sound simple, but there are numerous obstacles that, depending on your home’s structure, will vary in difficulty to tackle. 

Many houses use roof trusses to support the roof. If that’s the case in your home, you’ll want to gather the insights of a local structural engineer before moving forward. But, removing the ceiling joist members and altering the truss supports to accommodate the higher ceiling is a relatively straightforward process. 

During the reconstruction, you’ll likely have to move electrical components in the ceiling, and you may also have plumbing and HVAC items in the way. Raising the height of a conventional ceiling works best in a home with plenty of attic space underneath a hip- or gable-style roof.

2. Pitch It

Adding a vaulted or cathedral ceiling is a common addition to many remodeling projects. Technically speaking, a vaulted ceiling is any ceiling that is taller than a traditional flat 8-foot-high ceiling. However, the visions that most people imagine when discussing vaulted ceilings are ceilings with a slope that doesn’t necessarily follow the roofline of the house and cathedral ceilings with slopes that do follow the roofline. 

Your local home remodeling contractor can provide a list of options that fit the style of your house. The final look of your ceiling may depend on the location of various mechanical equipment overhead. In cold climates, the thickness of necessary roof insulation can affect the final height measurement. 

Vaulted and cathedral ceilings generally require that the roof of the house is a gable-style roof and that the room doesn't have living space above it. And remember that installing a vaulted ceiling can cost anywhere from $4,800 to $38,000.

3. Create a Shed Ceiling

Consider a shed ceiling for a home with a sloped roof or if you desire a vaulted-type ceiling in one room that doesn’t span the width of a house. You can think of a shed ceiling as half of a vaulted or cathedral ceiling. Adding a shed ceiling during a whole-house remodel can create the perfect transition to a lofted room or space. If your remodel includes rebuilding the roof, adding a dormer with a shed ceiling creates extra living space that’s functional and cost-effective. 

4. Get Around Boring Edges

Often, the support structure under the roof of an old home consists of little more than roof rafters and thin ceiling joists. That’s a perfect situation for considering raising the ceiling several inches into the attic space in the form of a tray or cove ceiling. The job is possible if your home is built with roof trusses, too. It just takes more planning and extra work. 

A tray ceiling is a ceiling that has a central area that is higher than its edges. The edges square off into what appears as a crown. They meet the wall at a 90-degree angle to form the look of an inverted “tray.”

A cove ceiling is similar to a tray ceiling. However, the edges form a round or angular slope shape rather than a box-like look. 

5. Give Your Ceiling Some Curves

Creating an elegant look and feel is what curved-vault ceilings are all about. With barrel vaults being the most common, domed ceilings and groin-vault ceilings add style like no other ceiling type. Surprisingly, they aren’t much more complex to install than a standard vaulted ceiling. 

If your home’s structure can accommodate a raised ceiling of any kind, you could incorporate a curved-vault ceiling design for a slightly larger price tag. 

• A barrel vault is a raised ceiling in which two sides of the ceiling form an arch and meet in the middle. The archway creates what looks like the concave inside of a barrel. 

• A groin vault is similar but includes adding more than two arching sides that all meet in the middle. Think of stereotypical ancient Roman architecture examples for ideas.

• A domed vault is a distant relative to a cove ceiling. The main difference is that a domed ceiling incorporates a small central raised section instead of most of the ceiling being higher than the perimeter. 

Considering the number of options and applications of curved-vault ceilings, many choose to hire a local qualified architect to maximize their home’s elegance potential.