Mural by Patrick Feller
The appearance of walls plays an important role in the interior design of every house. Walls are usually the most visible and dominant features of a room, and the overall look of a room highly depends on the design of the walls. The way you design your walls will determine the character of your home. Many people simply paint their walls in neutral colours, but adding a creative decoration can help you achieve a completely new and unique look.
There’s a huge variety of different wall decoration options that are used in modern interiors. You can choose from different features and materials, such as plaster, fabric, various kinds of paint, panelling, bricks, paper, and so on. It’s very important to understand the effects of each interior wall decoration feature since their impacts on the overall look on the room are vast. You can make your room look larger or smaller, darker or lighter, when working with texture, colour, and patterns.
Paint
Muji Red by Pittaya Sroilong
Choosing the right colour for your room is an important task that shouldn’t be underestimated. First of all, the colour of your walls should correspond with the overall interior of your room. Think about the colour of your furniture, windows, paintings, plants, and accessories. The last thing you want is to detract attention from a beautiful painting that hangs on a bold red wall.
Rooms painted in deep, warm colours like rust-red create the feeling of comfort and coziness. However, they’re more suitable for larger rooms, as they tend to make rooms look smaller. If you want your room to look more fresh, airy, and cool, use colours such as white, yellow, pale green, or blue. Furthermore, these colours make the interior look larger. Various interior design styles work with specific colours and hues that are typical for them.
Patterns and Textures
Wavy Patterned Wall
by Mikael Miettinen
Walls done up in plain colours may sometimes appear dull and boring, so many people use patterns and textures to make their walls look more attractive and interesting. There’s an abundance of various textures and patterns that can be used to modify the style and look of your room. It’s up to your own creativity how you use them. Remember: patterns and textures can substantially change the look of your room. For example, multi-hued patterns and diagonal, criss-crossing lines are always striking and attract huge attention. They create an impression of freshness and new life in a large room, but on the other hand they are too disturbing in a small room.
If you want to make your ceiling look higher, try to add vertical stripes, and if it’s too narrow, use horizontal ones. Sometimes, it’s a good idea to work with similar patterns in two or more rooms, as it creates an expansive look. Plus, sudden changes between rooms can have a disharmonious effect. When deciding between rough and smooth textures, keep in mind that smoother texture tends to reflect more light, and their cleaning is much more easier. On the other hand, rough texture creates a cozy, rustic look with a more natural atmosphere than in a shiny room with shiny, smooth walls.
Tiles
Tile Wall by Robert S Donovan
Many people think that tiles are suitable only for bathrooms and kitchens. However, the potential of tiles is much bigger. Using tiles on a single wall in a room is becoming more and more popular. It’s very common for modern design and architecture to work with wall tiles to brighten up an otherwise boring room. In fact, you can create your own modern wall art and add spice to your home.
Wallpapers
Wallpaper by John Cooke
Using wallpapers is one of the most popular wall-covering method. Wallpapers come in all sorts of colours, textures, and patterns. They offer you unlimited possibilities of decorating your walls, they are easy to put up, and they have an instant effect. This traditional wall treatment is now becoming increasingly popular due to its obvious advantages. However, nowadays, the most popular way of covering walls with wallpaper is in combination with paint. The recent trend is to cover half of the wall with a wallpaper and paint the other half using a wainscoting technique. Or you can cover one or two walls with wallpaper and paint the rest. It’s a creative and interesting way of expressing your tastes and personality, which makes your room look more interesting and modern.
Fabric
Wall Fabric by Craig Mackenzie
Fabric wall coverings come in a huge variety of styles, colours, and textures and sometimes even include special features such as acoustical panels, reducing sound reflections in a room.
Adding a fabric covering to your walls can be done in several ways. The easiest way is to purchase a wall-covering fabric with a paper backing and put it up as an ordinary wallpaper. However, you have to be careful because they’re much heavier than common wallpapers. It’s recommended to hire a company that will put up the fabric wall-covering on your walls. Remember to check the qualities and thickness of the fabric before you buy it since some kinds of fabrics should be treated in a special way.
Another common method of covering walls in fabrics is to have the fabric on batons that you stick to the wall. This technique is very popular in Europe, even though it’s more demanding and expensive. Another possibility is to coat panels with fabric and then adhere the panels to the wall.
Bricks
Brick Wall by Allison Felus
Leaving an exposed natural brick wall in a room can add atmosphere and style. Bare bricks are lovely; they make your room look warm, textural, and traditional. The popularity of bare brick walls is rapidly increasing, and a huge number of people are removing their plaster. And those who weren’t so lucky to have a brick wall underneath their plaster are installing fake ones. More draughts and reduced sound insulation are completely worth the cozy atmosphere of a room with a brick wall.
Wood Panelling
Wood Panelling
by Brad Montgomery
Wood panelling is often considered unattractive and suitable only for old properties. Wood panelling was very popular in the 1950s, and nowadays many people find it synonymous with cheap and ugly. But honestly, even today, there are rooms that look very good with wood panelling. Wood panelling can add character and is a better solution than plain coloured walls in many cases. They’re easy to install, long-lasting, and can be made waterproof by applying a silicone sealant. In addition, there are many types of wood panels, from oak panels to bamboo veneers, so you can design your room in various styles.
Murals
Interior wall murals are artworks painted directly on walls or ceilings. It’s the perfect way of adjusting the setting and atmosphere of your room precisely to your mood and tastes. Wall murals have brought wall decoration to a completely new level. If you have enough funds, your possibilities are limitless. Do you want to wake up in Taj Mahal or have a bath on a tropical beach? Murals allow you to give depth and new dimension to an otherwise plain wall.