Coving for Low Height Ceilings

What is the best kind of coving for low ceilings?

If you are struggling with a space that has low ceiling, whether a contemporary or period property, we can help you with tips for suitable coving. Don’t allow yourself to feel cramped and make the most effective use of the proportions with wall colour, appropriate window dressing and interior decorative mouldings.

Our advice: the higher the ceiling in a room, the bigger the cornice. Although there are no hard and fast rules, using a deep cornice in a room with low ceilings will feel out of proportion and shrink the room. 

We sell a range of coving in varying depths and styles to suit every interior from plain, pretty, deep and slim. If you are interested in up lighting you will find excellent options in our LED coving lighting collection and you can browse ‘by period’ to help you narrow down your search. 

As a guideline we recommend 200mm coving for ceiling 4.3 metres or higher. 120mm coving for ceilings 2.75 metres and 70mm coving for ceilings lower than 2.75 metres.

Other top tips for interior decorative mouldings in rooms with low ceilings

Clever use of paint

Paint your room in one colour from floor to ceiling, right up through the covings ensuring a continuous flow for the eye and give the illusion of a higher ceiling. It’s a very modern way to use paint colour and can include the doors too.

There is also another school of thought for using a darker colour below a dado rail to anchor the lower part of the room and give the illusion of extra ceiling height. We would recommend painting one colour from above the dado rail right up over the ceiling.

Use panelling in a small room

Using panelling is a fantastic way to draw the eye vertically making the room seem taller than it is. Resist painting it in dark colours unless you desire a cosy, snug kind of space and stick to one continuous colour right up to the coving and across the ceiling.