I have been struggling with this decision for months. And it is time to decide and do it. The drywall is ready to go up and we want the ceiling painted first. Everything I read says if you paint a ceiling white it appears higher. Our basement ceiling is 7 feet. We have left everything exposed (i.e. joist, pipes, hvac, etc... ). I wanted to paint it black and have everything disappear. My concern is that doing this I will, in appearance, lower the ceiling. All pipes will disappear etc when it is painted black but it will seem like a cave. We are installing black tracklights between the joist (running parralel). They will hang down exactly even with the joist. We looked at recessed lights but they did not come in black and we did not want to paint them. But the point is, that it will be very bright with lights. Any ideas from anyone who has accomplished this (painted their exposed basement ceiling black) and is happy/unhappy?

The question has come up here before. Perhaps the search feature would turn it up. If the members that tried it are no longer active, they may still respond to a PM or email. I have never done it, but it seems to work well in a public building. I understand your concern about the cave effect.