Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we have 10 ft ceilings in our 1920s home and now that we're home shopping we realized how nice and airy it is--makes a smaller space feel larger. We looked at a couple homes with 8 ft and they felt cramped.

OTOH, my BIL lives in a victorian with 14 ft ceilings and its too much--its always always cold there (san francisco) and very expensive to heat.

+1 not something we noticed right away in our 1920s bungalow, but now that we are looking to upgrade for more space, when entering other homes with bigger rooms but lower ceilings we realize sqft is not the only thing that matters. Some seriously bigger homes just felt too cramped

+1 it's not just ceiling height in isolation, but in connection with the sight lines. 9' ceilings in a bungalow can feel high, and 10' ceilings in an open plan, large new build with 80' sight lines can feel low.

Most power WWII homes had 8' ceilings until the 90's when 9' became the standard in all but the most entry level homes. In more expensive or custom homes these days you will see 10 or 12 foot ceilings on the main level. One issue once you go past 9' ceilings is that windows and doors need to get bigger too or they start to look odd.

In our new build home, ceilings are 10 feet on both the main and upstairs and 9' in the finished basement.

Anonymous wrote:I love high ceilings, def a key selling point for me. With caveats that they cannot be too high (above 12/cathedral ceilings type) not because of esthetic but because I am too poor to happily pay crazy energy bills for my 600k home

I have huge windows and pretty high ceilings (10ft mostly, 15ft in some rooms) and pay the same or less in energy bills as our old built in 1979 HOA development colonial (which had updated vinyl windows, HVAC with high SEER and blown in fiberglass roof insulation). New place is also about 2x the square footage.

I attribute this to a solid new build construction that is typical these days (house wrap, fiberglass batts in all exterior walls, low-e double glass windows) vs standard old construction (no house wrap, no wall insulation) and going from electric to gas heat.

You do need ceiling fans in those high ceiling rooms though.

Anonymous wrote:we have 10 ft ceilings in our 1920s home and now that we're home shopping we realized how nice and airy it is--makes a smaller space feel larger. We looked at a couple homes with 8 ft and they felt cramped.

OTOH, my BIL lives in a victorian with 14 ft ceilings and its too much--its always always cold there (san francisco) and very expensive to heat.

+1 not something we noticed right away in our 1920s bungalow, but now that we are looking to upgrade for more space, when entering other homes with bigger rooms but lower ceilings we realize sqft is not the only thing that matters. Some seriously bigger homes just felt too cramped

we have 10 ft ceilings in our 1920s home and now that we're home shopping we realized how nice and airy it is--makes a smaller space feel larger. We looked at a couple homes with 8 ft and they felt cramped.

OTOH, my BIL lives in a victorian with 14 ft ceilings and its too much--its always always cold there (san francisco) and very expensive to heat.

Anonymous wrote:Op here : how high are the ceilings in your 90s home ? I had in mind they started to raise again above 8ft in the end of 90s / beg of 00s

9 and 10 ft. We have raised ceilings in our family room, living room, dining room and master bedroom. 9 ft is very spacious in bedrooms and it lets our kitchen cabinets go the entire way up to the ceiling in the kitchen.

Op here : how high are the ceilings in your 90s home ? I had in mind they started to raise again above 8ft in the end of 90s / beg of 00s

I love to decorate and ceilings that are higher than 10 ft are very hard to decorate. Pre war homes didn't have AC and they needed the transoms (windows over doors that open) to help circulate air.

Personally my favorite layouts were in the 1990s and beyond. These layouts were more focused on the family with larger kitchens and family rooms and much smaller formal rooms. Our current home was built in the mid 90s and everyone compliments it's layout without us bringing it up. I've never had that happen in any other home I've lived in and I used to think it was weird when people mentioned it.

I absolutely hate homes from the 1950s-1980s. Bad architecture, low ceilings and small closets.

Anonymous wrote:I love high ceilings, def a key selling point for me. With caveats that they cannot be too high (above 12/cathedral ceilings type) not because of esthetic but because I am too poor to happily pay crazy energy bills for my 600k home

This is me.
I like huge windows that are well placed. They make or break the house for me.

We have 10 foot ceiling upgrade in our new build, it's great.

I love high ceilings, def a key selling point for me. With caveats that they cannot be too high (above 12/cathedral ceilings type) not because of esthetic but because I am too poor to happily pay crazy energy bills for my 600k home

Yes def, that's way people pay a premium for prewar bungalows: the good ceiling heights gives way more charm to the living space.

Post WWII, ceiling heights were reduced to 8ft, to reduce cost of constructions and energy bills. Rooms are darker and feel smaller.

For the past decade, average ceiling heights are going up again. New homes tend to feature at least 9ft, more expensive ones going for the 10-12ft.

Also to note: if you look at beautifully decorated rooms on houzz or pinterest, they disproportionately feature high ceilings... People don't notice right away and focus on sqft but ceiling heights can make a huge diff in how beautiful a room is

Ok, I'll admit it from the start: I am an idiot and my AHA moment comes very late. But now that I finally understood why I fall in love with certain houses and not others, I am surprised that ceiling heights is never mentioned in home descriptions, but maybe I am the only one on whom they have such an impact? Or it should be obvious given the architectural style?

I am a foreigner, unfamiliar with American architecture and navigated the past year looking at everything from Victorian homes, 1920s bungalows and other pre-war houses, versus post war cape cod, colonial and ramblers (or more recent remodels). I now realize that I didn't feel good in the post war houses I saw because the ceilings were too low. My favorite to date was a tiny 1000sqft craftsman bungalow, smaller than other houses I visited but with 10' ceiling that allowed me to breeze.

Question to you:
1- can you assume ceiling heights is almost always the same for each architectural houses? Ie bungalow and Victorians = higher ceilings than PWWII homes?
2- does it have a big impact on your home choices/should be considered a premium or personally you don't care so much?
3- if you are building a new home right now, what's your ideal ceiling height?