10 unique hallway ceiling design ideas for every Indian home

1. How to Build the Right Hallway Ceiling Design for your Home

Since this is the space that welcomes guests into the rest of your home, the hallway interior is a tricky design that needs special attention. If you’re unsure of a starting point for designing the space, you’ll need a reliable and seasoned designer and contractor. With this thought in mind, India’s largest paint giant Asian Paints created the Beautiful Homes Service.

Enlisting expert interior designers, who’ve worked across the length and breadth of the industry, the Beautiful Homes Service takes care of executing every task in your home renovation from start to finish. This ensures a hassle-free and time-saving experience for anyone with a vision to remodel their home (or redesign a particular room) but lacking the time or patience to coordinate and project manage between the army of people required to finish the job.

2. A Coffered Ceiling to Enhance the Foyer Design

Also known as caisson ceilings, plafond à caissons or cross-beamed ceilings, a coffered ceiling comprises a group of sunken panels that can be designed in any shape. An age-old technique of interior design, this type of ceiling was once upon a time made solely out of stone. Today, these classic  coffers can be found in heritage homes, churches and libraries. Built with coffered panels that are attached to a suspended grid to create a new false ceiling, a deep coffer in a spacious room makes it look grand and stately. However, a more shallow one works better for opening up smaller spaces.

3. A Hallway Design with a False Ceiling

A false ceiling (also known as a dropped or suspended ceiling) is one that hangs below the existing ceiling in a home. Commonly found in commercial spaces such as offices, hotels and malls, today, a false ceiling can be built in any room of the house—even as part of the hallway pop design. The benefits of building this allows homeowners to conceal the untidy bits of fixtures and fittings such as air-conditioning ducts, electric wires, tanks and pipes required for plumbing.

Expert Eye: In this foyer design, the false ceiling allows for a row of recessed lights to neatly light up the entrance of the home.

4. A Tray Ceiling for the Hallway Interior

Visually displaying multiple levels, a tray ceiling starts from one height (usually the height of the original ceiling) and tapers down with added levels as it meets the wall. Also known as a panned or stepped ceiling, this design resembles an inverted tray with side steps or even mouldings that create a three-dimensional effect in the room. They also create the illusion of making a room seem visibly taller. Typically comprising two to three levels or steps, a tray ceiling can be built to enhance any hallway interior that has a minimum ceiling height of eight feet.

Style Tip: Moulding isn’t just for the walls—they can be created on the ceiling, too. To add an element of grandeur, add mouldings to each step of the tray ceiling in the hallway ceiling design. While minimalists can opt for something simple and clean-lined, a more intricate and ornate design can also be used to bring in more opulence in a maximalist home!

5. How to Create a Unique and Unconventional Hallway Interior Design

While most ceilings are known to be painted in neutral or light colours such as white or cream, there’s no design rule saying you can’t do things differently. Any unique element on the ceiling will immediately draw the eye up, creating the illusion of a bigger more open room. This is a clever idea for a foyer design or hallway interior which is often a narrow corridor or small common area.

Style Tip: A simple yet unique idea is painting the entire ceiling in a bright hue or your favourite colour. 

6. Create a Coved or Cathedral Ceiling Around the Architecture of a Home

Built around the shape the roof of a home naturally lends to a room, a coved or cathedral ceiling adds a unique design to a room. While famous coved ceilings in the world include the ones housed within the domes of the Taj Mahal, Agra, the Vatican, and St Paul’s Cathedral, London, you’ll typically find coved-roofs in buildings such as mosques, amphitheatres and modern domed buildings such as the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. A cathedral or vaulted roof, in contrast, is known for its inverted V-shape which follows the inner slopes of a typical A-frame roof. While they can be built with a variety of materials, the most common and aesthetic option is lining it with linear planks of wood.

Insider’s Tip: While these roofs add a different shape to an entrance foyer ceiling design, to create a sense of balance, hang a row of pendant lights to lead the way into the rest of the home.

7. An All-wood Entrance Foyer Ceiling Design

Natural solid wood always add an element of richness and tasteful style in any home. If your home is designed with interesting wooden furniture, you could echo this in the foyer design or hallway interior. While wooden panelling on the walls may make the space feel a bit cramped, adding linear wood panels on the ceiling will bring in a unique charm.

Design Tip:If the furniture or doors in a room are in a particular stain of wood, use the same shade for the ceiling, as well, to create uniformity.

8. A Conventional Hallway Ceiling Design

A conventional hallway ceiling is one that you’ll probably find in a majority of homes. They are plain and flat without any moulding or embellishments, and made from common construction materials such as cement or plaster of Paris. Usually, a conventional hallway pop ceiling design is at the highest height in the room since a false or suspended ceiling hasn’t been built under it. While a room’s walls can be in any colour or print of wallpaper, a ceiling is often painted in a neutral light colour such as white or cream.

Style Tip: To decorate a simple hallway ceiling design, use elements from the rest of the room as inspiration. In this open foyer design, the ruddy walls, clay pottery and distressed wood furniture lend an earthen colour palette to the entire space. While in comparison the hallway modern plus minus POP design above is stark white, the brass on the pendant lights that hang from it pair gorgeously with the rest of the décor.

9. An All-white Hallway Ceiling Design for a Small-space Home

As a rule of thumb, white or any light pastel shade works wonders in opening up a small room. If your hallway seems a bit cramped, you could consider a clean-lined all white style for a modern hall ceiling design. Without any design distractions or jarring colours, this will create a space that’s visibly bright and airy.

Style Tip: To break the monotony, include moveable pieces and accessories such as art on the walls or a colourful rug on the floor. In a pinch, a fresh vase or flowers or a potted plant will always do the trick!

10. Create a Tasteful Modern Hall Ceiling Design with Exposed Beams

If you’re lucky enough to have a vaulted ceiling with exposed wooden beams, showcasing them in your entrance foyer ceiling design will make your home look unique and eye-catching. Designed to drawn the eye up to the ceiling to make a space feel larger, exposed rafters can also be made from materials such as steel or iron. When styling the foyer design around it, pair other elements in the room with the material used on these beams. In this open and airy hallway design, we see the doors, parapets and wall mirror frame made from the same wood as the exposed rafters on top.