Help with colour of covered ducts on ceiling (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Gould]

I'm looking for opinions on what colour my covered ductwork on my ceilings should be. Below are three links to pictures of said ducts. The covered ducts are the boxy drywall structures along the tops of the wall.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3

The ceiling will be a dark gray, while the walls will be sort of an ocean blue.

What I'm wondering specifically is... should the sides and bottom of these duct coverings be gray with the ceiling, or blue with the walls? Or maybe the sides blue, and bottoms gray?

 

[Frank Zimkas]

I'd say the same color as the walls, my wife say's the same color as the ceiling. So between the two of us...we're useless!:b

 

[Pam W]

Aaron,

Those are on the ceiling, right? Paint them the same color as the ceiling so they will "vanish". Don't call attention to them!

Pam

 

[David Preston]

If you paint it the same color as the ceiling wouldn't that make the room look smaller like the ceiling is low? If you paint it the same as walls the walls would look higher right? I'm no expert at all maybe someone can tell me if I'm correct or way wrong.

 

[Aaron Gould]

Frank: Haha, Thanks.

Pam: They're right on the corner of the walls and ceiling.

A couple of tidbits... the ceiling is 7'-6" in height, so maybe David's advice of colouring them with the walls would be good (so that it makes the ceiling look higher).

Those covered ducts drop about 10" down from the ceiling. I'm wondering if that would be too much dark gray...

Here's another picture to maybe help things:

Picture 4

This is the double-door entry to the same room as above (looking out from the room). The ceiling in this picture is the same height as the 10" drop mentioned above. I'll want this the same colour as the duct covering I think.

 

[Mark McGill]

I had a very similair situation. I know this may be too late but I extended the drops around the room for symmetry and then placed crown molding around the room to hide the recessed lighting. Oh yeah about the paint. Same as the walls. It will give the illusion of a higher ceiling.

One thing that I've found out is that if you don't have alot of natural light, then maybe you could skip the dark ceiling and go with something darker on the walls. There is nothing like a dark ceiling in a basement to make it feel closed in. BTW I asked Craig Miller about painting my ceiling dark (it is now white) and he said it would not be a noticed benefit. If I could find out where to host my pictures I would be glad to show you.

 

[Aaron Gould]

Mark, an interesting point on the dark ceiling making it feel closed in.

This room is also doubling as my home office (I'm a web developer on the side). Here's an overhead layout of the room. The area behind the couch is my computer work area.

[C] [/C]

There is just one 2 1/2' x 1 1/2' window on the side, but there will be four recessed lights (75W each) that should provide plenty of brightness. That's at full brightness -- I've got Lutron dimmers handling the levels.

Should I still be worried about a "closed in" feel with 300W of incandescent light?

Also, I'm after some lighter gray coloured carpet, so that will not contribute to darkness.

 

[David Preston]

Let us know what your final decision is and make sure we get some pics.