12 Tray Ceiling Ideas to Inspire you!

Looking for tray ceiling ideas to help you transform your bedroom? Take a look at these twelve ideas to inspire you.

Tray ceilings, also known as recessed ceilings, were often installed in the 1990-early 2000s. In Missouri, I've seen them a bunch as a way to create a sense of luxury and elegance. I've seen them installed in ornate ways and more simply.

I know that there's a ton of confusion on how to paint a room with a tray ceiling (my bestie has asked me about this, too!) so I wanted to share some examples that I like because it's a tricky design dilemma to encounter for sure.

Tray Ceiling Ideas by Room

I'm sharing mostly bedroom ideas but there's a few ideas for the dining room, too. For kitchens and living rooms, you often see coffered ceilings instead of tray ceilings. So, we will talk about those a different time.

Bedroom Enhancements

Paint is the most important part of getting the tray ceiling in your bedroom to work for you instead of against you. I want to focus on that aspect and share specific examples of master bedroom tray ceiling ideas that work!

In this bedroom, they decided to keep it simple by having white walls and the same color painted on the ceiling. If you love the color white and love the look of this room, keep it simple and let that tray ceiling blend in instead of sticking out.

I've seen this room a few times and have always loved it (I even shared it in the blog post that I did on emerald green bedrooms). It's the exact same concept as the all white room, above, but the designer chose to go with a jewel-toned-green color. Notice that the room and ceiling are both painted the same color. So, instead of standing out, they both just meld together, perfectly.

This tray ceiling is similar to what I see around here and I find that people are so confused on where and when to stop the paint. This is a great example of how to use two colors. The ceiling and the first down section is painted the ceiling color. Because there's a floating crown molding, this works really well. I would have looked like it was falling down into the room if the darker gray paint was painted on the next two sections.

If you have a double tray ceiling (like the above), don't paint the second tray that is closer to the wall and don't paint the horizontal drywall pieces differently from the vertical one's by alternating. I don't want to show an example of this because I don't want to be mean or rude, but use the examples in this post as your guide!

The color and contrast of the tray ceiling can have a significant impact on the overall look and feel of the room. This contrasting color adds visual interest and depth to the space.

Dining Area Styles

Tray ceilings can also be used to add some visual interest to your dining area. They can be used to create a sense of intimacy and warmth, or to draw attention to a particular area of the room. Consider adding some pendant lighting to your tray ceiling to create a dramatic effect.

I think wallpaper can be such a cool addition to a tray ceiling. I this example they have color-matched the wallpaper to the tray molding which I think works well.

If you want texture, adding wood inside the tray ceiling is also something that you can do. This dining room has a tongue and groove inlay.

Overall, tray ceilings aren't something that I'd add to a new build but they aren't as bad as you might think. All of these examples are beautiful in the way that they are working with the details of the house instead of fighting against them.