Set up a room with a sloping ceiling | Alex Garden

So close to the sky, so far from attractive interior design? Those who live in the attic are faced with the challenge of having to furnish a room with a sloping ceiling. However, this undertaking is often described as more complicated than it actually is. In fact, attic rooms can be made extremely comfortable. To do this, the inhabitants simply need to know how to make optimal use of the available space. Below we have collected some tips and tricks that you can use to intelligently design your attic room.

Make optimal use of the available space

Living spaces under the roof are often not recognized as fully functional. This is mainly due to the fact that many building families do not know how to furnish their room with a sloping ceiling. In general, it is advisable not only to fill the height of the knee or jamb – i.e. the vertical wall on which the covering rests – with furnishing elements, but rather to exploit the entire space, up to the ridge. Large rooms under the roof can be segmented into smaller areas using dividers. You can set up a work area, a play area for your children, or simply separate the sleeping area for greater privacy.

Rötzer expert advice: Are you afraid of losing too much space in your rooms due to sloping ceilings? Then the RötzerCreativ house with knee-high floor is right for you.

The right furniture

Less is more! This applies both to the number of furniture and their height. If you want to furnish a room with a sloping ceiling, it is advisable to choose the furniture based on the height of the room. Low tables or sideboards as well as flat sofas visually stretch the room upwards. They also fill the corners better. The room appears more airy if the furniture is placed freely instead of next to each other. If a bedroom is planned under the roof, a large bed directly under the gable will be particularly suitable. There is usually still room for two bedside tables at the head end.

Mount a built-in wardrobe in the sloping roof

You can create storage space even in a room with a sloping ceiling. For example with a built-in wardrobe under the sloping wall. You can build such a cabinet yourself or have it built by a professional. Whichever variant you choose, the built-in wardrobe can be used in different ways if mounted under the oblique. For example, as an open or closed bookcase for clothes, as a document archive, or to cleverly disguise a television.

Rötzer expert advice: Before starting construction, carefully check which roof shape best suits you and your needs.

Use the sloping roof as an alcove or reading niche

If you feel comfortable in small, narrow rooms, you should consider turning the sloping ceiling into a bed niche. This not only creates a pleasantly protected area, but also optimally fills the available space. However, if you place the bed directly under the sloped wall, make sure to align the foot part towards the slope, otherwise you will quickly hit your head when you stand up. If you don’t like sleeping under the sloping roof, you can turn it into a cozy reading nook or mattress landscape using pillows and cushions.

Indirect lighting against dark corners

Correctly chosen lighting also has a positive effect on the design of the room. The chandeliers, hanging directly under the ridge, constitute an excellent decorative element that expertly fills the highest point of the room. However, in a room with a sloped ceiling, pendant lights and ceiling spotlights usually do not provide the level of brightness needed to illuminate the corners of the room. Therefore choose small floor or table lamps as indirect lighting. These are easy to place and give coziness to the room.

Color design and sloping roof decoration

If you want to furnish a room with a sloped ceiling, the design of the sloped ceiling itself plays a crucial role. A wall that protrudes diagonally into the room is always more visually present than a vertical one. If you want to suggest more spaciousness, you should choose light colors for painting the walls with wallpaper. Dark colors, on the other hand, visually narrow the room. The same principle also applies to light and dark wood paneling and inclined wall decorations, such as posters or wall tattoos. The larger and darker the decoration, the more visually it delimits the space.

You can find out more about the effect of wall painting in our blog post on the topic «Interior Design: The effect of colors in rooms».