Just LOOK UP!

Let high-impact ceilings capture your gaze with these genius ideas for embracing color, pattern and texture.

- MONIQUE VALERIS

ADD HEIGHT WITH TRAY CEILINGS.

A tray (or recessed) ceiling, as in this New York City apartment, makes a space-challenged room seem larger by drawing the eye upward. Designer Kati Curtis enhanced this one with a custom patinated finish she developed with the painter a nod to an architectural detail on the historic building's exterior. "The finish inside the tray changes from light teal to copper depending on how you look at it," she says.

Think beyond white.