When and How to Use Accent Walls for Design Dummies

An accent wall can be just the thing you need to breathe some fresh air into a room you've gotten bored of. However, if you're not very into design, it can be hard to pick and choose, since there are so many options out there. Luckily, it will be very hard to go wrong if you follow these simple guidelines.

Mural-type accent walls

When to use mural accent walls?

  • Your room is not visually busy or cluttered
  • The other walls are one plain colour
  • You don't have a lot of decorative items
  • The room is plainly furnished or the furniture is a matching set (or the individual pieces look fairly similar in style)
  • You don't have mold issues on the wall you want to paint (since such a complex paintjob will be much harder to fix than that of a plain wall)

Such walls can have one big image, either painted or photographic, or maybe a series of paintings hung in simple frames covering its entire span.

If your room is modern, you could choose, but are not limited to, one of the following: photographic imagery, a painting in a modern or abstract style, a world map of whatever type (maybe even the map of a fantasy land), or perhaps a huge quote that inspires you and that you'd be able to look at everyday without getting tired of it.  

Geometric walls

Choose a geometric wall if:

  • You like sleek shapes and clean lines
  • The other walls are not cluttered with paintings and picture frames
  • Your furniture is plain or has a design that's similar to the one you want to apply on the wall (for example, if you have baroque furniture you can try a wall with sinuous shapes and curves), or minimalist/plain enough that anything goes

Geometric walls are soothing for people who like order and symmetry. They are also the easiest to change if you get bored of them – add a new element in the pattern, or just paint over them, and a whole new accent wall reveals itself to you.

You can add even more visual interest by alternating flat and high gloss paint, creating a luxe wallpaper effect for the whole wall.

Speaking of wallpaper…

Wallpaper accent walls

Wallpaper walls can be modern, if you try to make them so. There are a myriad of designs you can choose, and as long as the pattern is not too antiquated and the colours in the wallpaper match the rest of your room, this is the easiest option you can choose.

Choose a wallpaper wall if:

  • the wallpaper design has shapes and colours that match the rest of your room
  • you don't mind repetitive designs
  • you don't mind being limited style-wise later if you choose to change your furniture

Be wary that this looks best if all the other items in the room are plain coloured and not patterned, though. However, if you're savvy enough you can choose contrasting patterns for more visual interest.

For more information, contact a painter.

About Me

Creating a stimulating environment in a meeting room

I run a creative agency and we need to run a lot of brainstorming sessions. It's important that we get the creative juices flowing as the quality of our ideas is what sets us apart from our competitors. Our current meeting rooms are a little bland and corporate so we are painting the walls and turning them into really fun and stimulating environment that we can retreat to for our creative and brainstorming sessions. I think they are starting to look great and I think you'll like seeing them on the site. This blog is all about painting meeting rooms to create creative environments.

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