When it comes to home decorating, some of the most effective projects are the most simple, and some of the most plain and boring parts of a home are the perfect canvas for something beautiful. You don’t always have to buy a piece of furniture or put in a fancy fixture to give a room more style.
Sometimes all you need to do is pay attention to one wall and apply your creativity to it. This is where the accent or feature wall comes in. It allows you to scale things way down, put your effort into a smaller area and really make the most of it.
If you’re on a budget or looking for something that doesn’t require a full scale redesign or renovation, this is the perfect decorating solution. Here are a few accent wall ideas that will make your home more chic.
Gallery Wall
A gallery wall is a great way to bring some visual interest to an area in your home that’s lacking style, color and character. You can also use it to tell a story about your life, your travels, your interests and what you care about. A typical gallery wall includes just a set of framed photos, but you don’t have to play it safe.
Why not make your gallery wall a true visual story by including things that are quite different? Mix framed photographs with unique, eye-catching and uniquely shaped wall art and even a custom neon sign with a phrase you like. That way your gallery wall becomes a real point of interest that draws attention and turns something plain into something special.
Contrast
One of the simplest accent walls just about anyone can do is through paint. If a room’s walls are one color, you could select one of the walls and paint it a different color, preferably something bright and eye-catching. If the room’s walls are white, paint one of the walls blue or green, for example.
You don’t even have to paint an entire wall. You can paint a wall feature in an arch shape on a smaller area of the wall, or a circle shape just above your bed. You can easily buy templates online that allow you to paint perfect shapes that transform a room in a matter of hours.
For a cooler hack – you can actually buy contact paper in the shape you want, and instead of painting all you have to do is peel and stick!
Geometric Panelling
If you have a blank wall and nothing to do with it, a few wood planks, some wood glue and some wall paint could turn it into something completely different. Board and batten is a common way people dress up a wall and give it a custom designed look, but you can take board and batten to the next level by making it more modern.
All you would have to do is grab the long wood planks, get them cut to your desired size, and glue them onto the wall in your desired pattern – herringbone, diamonds or diagonal lines. You can even arrange them to form long rectangle shapes.
Once the wood piece is perfectly fastened to the wall, all you need is a wall paint which you will apply on the planks and on your wall to make them match. With a few pieces, you elevate a drab wall into an expensive looking feature with character.
Slat Wall
Slat walls are a stylish upgrade to the wood panels that were very trendy in the 1970s. They involve wood planks but in a different way. Instead of laying them flat on the wall and cutting small pieces, the planks go from the ceiling to the floor, are thinner in profile, and are placed almost side by side with very small spaces in between.
The wood is also treated with a light wood stain to give it Scandi perfection. The slat look doesn’t have to be applied to an entire wall. It can be done just behind a bed or a couch in the living room, above a fireplace or on a random wall that needs more detail, or even to separate two spaces. The result will be a very high-end looking accent wall that you can actually do on your own if you have the time and some DIY skills.
If you’re tired of staring at a blank and boring wall, the good news is you don’t have to. You can easily execute one of these simple ideas and make your home look like something out of your favorite decorating TV show.
