Decorating your home is serious business. After all, you will have to live with the results of these decorative choices, whether they were good or bad.
One design option that has been quite the trend is an accent wall, also known as a feature wall. You can have accent walls in the interiors and exteriors of your home. They are characterized by their differing appearance from the rest of the walls in that space, such as a different shade or even material than the others.
Accent walls are a great way to add more personality to a living space. They can reinforce a theme and make a room come alive, but you can only achieve this when your accent wall is done right.
But how do you make sure that your accent wall works?
Go Beyond Colors
Let yourself think outside the box. Your feature wall does not just have to be a plain block of paint. There are plenty of ways to get creative with it.
Consider bold colors, too.
Don’t be afraid to go past the usual neutral color palette of a home when designing your accent room. Bold and bright colors can work, too.
If you want to try a bold color and still make it look consistent with the rest of the space, introduce the shade through various decorations in the room. For instance, you can make it match with little touches, such as cushions and ornaments.
In choosing colors, make sure that it is one that you would not mind seeing in your home every day.
Play with textures and patterns.
Solid colors are a simple way to make a space pop, but you can even go further and use textured materials to highlight your wall. Stone, brick, and tiles could be the extra “oomph” your room needs to look more sophisticated.
Don’t have the time to set up a wall with different materials? Textured wall stick-ons are your best friend. These are easy to install since you just peel and then place the panels on your desired space at home.
For a more vibrant and youthful look, you can even opt for printed wallpaper. Wallpapers usually have a great assortment of styles and designs for different tastes. Some of these are also temporary, which is great for those who are renting their home and cannot make permanent changes to the property.
Make It Work With the Space
The wall is not your only consideration when it comes to putting up an accent wall. You have to look at the whole room to ensure your wall works as an accent rather than an eyesore.
Refer to the color of the other walls.
What are the colors of your other walls? Are they a stark white, or are they on the more neutral side, such as gray, tan, and beige? Choose your accent wall depending on the shade of your other walls.
If you have bright white walls, choosing another loud color for your accent could be tough on the eyes. Choose a mid-tone color instead to soften the whiteness of your other walls. Feel free to choose starker contrasts for walls in a muted shade, but keep in mind what color would match well with the rest of the space.
Make the right wall your accent wall.
It isn’t just a matter of choosing a wall and painting over it. It would be best if you also chose the right wall to turn into your accent wall.
An accent wall will naturally grab the attention of a person when they come inside the room. That means that you have to make sure that it will be pleasant visually when their eyes are drawn to that area.
One way to ensure that you choose the right wall is if there are no asymmetrically placed doors or windows on that side of the room. This is preferable because openings often allow in light that contrasts unpleasantly with a dark accent wall if the doors and windows are not symmetrically positioned.
Visualize the “shape” of your accent wall.
Imagine its shape once painted over to confirm further if you have chosen the right wall to make into an accent wall. There’s a tip: use apps or editing software to digitally manipulate a picture of your room and see if it forms a pleasant shape.
Ultimately, the most important factor in deciding how to go about creating an accent wall is your preference. You will be the one using the room, so the greatest factor in knowing if it is right is if the design makes you want to keep visiting the room.