I’m no paint pro, but in my last house and now house, the walls and ceilings were painted the same color, similar to Drop Cloth. One house Kelly Moore, one house BM.

In both houses, the ceilings looked lighter, no matter the room or lighting situation. So much so, that I questioned my painters in both situations if they’d used a lighter paint on the ceilings.

In painted inspiration rooms I like, such as Heidi Caillier‘s, the F&B IG page, Edward Bulmer IG, etc, many rooms have the same color on walls and ceilings and don’t look darker to me.

I’d use Drop Cloth on both in your bathroom, but am curious to hear what others think and if my situations were somehow an anomaly.

I can’t say on sheen, hopefully F&B users see this.

Please show afters, love that color!

We went the same color too in our new bath (though it is a white that matches the trim in that room except for the sheen). I posted a question about using a lighter white here at the time and had lots of people tell me not to lighten it, so we didn't. Same experience as Jilly--in our space with 9' ceilings, the ceiling actually looks a little lighter, rather than darker, even though it's exactly the same color. (I bought the paint, so no chance the painters switched anything up!) In our original bathroom the walls are BM Edgecomb Gray with Acadia White (a creamy white) on the ceiling, which also works--the ceiling color there is matched to the trim.

I really like BM's bath paint, which happens to be a matte. It sounds like that may be similar to the F&B bath line. We use satin on the wood trim in those rooms.

Thanks for both of your experiences. Super interesting that your ceilings looked lighter. And of course, I appreciate the simplicity of having to only order and use one color!

@Jilly, I'm smitten with Heidi Collier. Though, for her Seattle houses, I might become too depressed with her color choices. If I Iived there I'd have to double my number of lighting fixtures and lamps and paint everything super yellow based cream!

Also, just called Farrow and Ball and they have a new paint formula out next week, Dead Flat, that is 2% sheen and totally wipeable as in you can wipe off magic markers. Wow. Suitable for trim, wood, metal, ceiling, walls, but not ideal for bathrooms.

Kendrah, I agree her rooms can be moody!

She posted this today. It’s so cozy.

I so want to try F & B paint someday.

Can’t wait to see how yours turns out!

Every painter I've used hates Farrow and Ball. They say it doesn't cover as well, primer drinks it up, they have to do more coats. I have had FB paints color matched by BM. Not the same thing at all. I just used FB in our apartment for the first time and it is just such incredible depth of color. I have one of their fan decks. The samples are painted with one coat of primer and 2 coats of paint. They are so lovely to just flip through.

Thanks Marylee. I think I am just going to paint the ceiling the same color and live with whatever it looks like. Though it is hard to not buy a paint named cake batter. Good marketing with that one.

I like eggshell for walls, it gives them just a bit of a glow without all the problems with a flat finish. I always do ceilings in a flat finish.

Current foyer with ceiling the same color as my walls. Walls are eggshell, ceiling flat.

My living room in my last home with same color walls and ceiling.

I would do the ceilings the same color. I would consider eggshell or pearl on the ceiling if the bathroom is not well ventilated. If I remember NYC bathrooms only have those passive bath ventilation ducts powered by turbines on the roof and do not have fan powered exhausts so the ceiling might get a little weird with flat paint.

Pre war look with subway tiles...you must mean the Spanish American War? School teacher, here.

Pre-war in Manhattan real estate describes a particular type of apartment building style, as opposed to the white box buildings built after 1945. It's imprecise but if you follow NYC real estate, you know it when you see it.

That’s true in other parts of the country too—we’re in California in a neighborhood with many prewar buildings and they are almost always advertised as such when they come up for rent or sale. People seem to know what that means and why it’s (usually!) an asset.

@elcieg Love your history question. Subway tiles were created for the NYC subway in 1904. They became popular in residential settings in the 1920s. Prewar refers to pre-WW2. My building is considered prewar - built in 1939, so just squeaked in there. Our building had an ever so slight art deco vibe and originally used square 4x4 tiles. But I'm pretending the bathroom is from a prewar 1920s apartment with 3x6 subway tiles!

My sister had a Sears house built in 1938 or 39. It had two bathrooms both with fully rectified glazed ceramic tile. One mint green and black in 4x4 and one yellow and black with 3x6 subway. And the yellow bathroom had all the tile upgrades like tile in soap dishes of various types, tooth brush and cup holder, razor slot, robe hook, towel bar, matching ceramic sconces... so it wasn't leftovers I think--it was still considered a stylish bathroom, even though square had kinda taken over for rectangular.

@palimpsest they are my favorite! We did mint green and black subways for our new bathroom, and I'm itching to redo our existing bathroom with some fun 4x4 tile schemas (but not in the cards quite yet). We're not sure what the original tile for our 1915 house was--it's spec'ed in the plans as 'cement tile to 5' 0"' and you can see in the plaster where there was clearly once tile up to that mark, but it was long gone by the time we bought the house. But pretty sure there was 1" hex on the floor since we've dug up a ton of loose tiles in the yard over the years. (We will either do 1" hex or 1" square tiles when we finally redo that bathroom.)