When it comes to the essential items that every house needs, one isn’t really an item, but something of a design philosophy, which means it often gets forgotten. A focal point can help you direct the viewer’s eye to a specific point, one that is often designed to encapsulate the aesthetic of the room or simply to frame it in a way that puts it all in a much better light. There are a lot of focal points you can use but if you have a lot of wall space, then you should consider elevating one of them. If you want to use a feature wall in your home, here are a few tips that can help you make the best of use of them.
Make sure that the room suits a feature wall
You shouldn’t just be using a feature wall because you think that all rooms should have them or because you think that you’re in need of a focal point. You might be, but that doesn’t mean that your wall is the best place for it. Instead, you should make sure that you’re using a room that offers space to work with. Open plan areas, for instance, tend to suit feature walls better than smaller rooms. Small feature walls aren’t going to draw a lot of attention, for instance. A room that is long and narrow might suit a feature wall, but only if you can choose the right wall as noted below.
Choosing the right wall
Not every single thing that you want to turn into a focal point is going to turn into one. Placement matters a great deal, which means that there are some walls that are rarely if ever, going to work as a feature wall. For instance, the wall that is on the same side as the door that you enter from isn’t going to work, since you want the feature wall to catch attention almost immediately. Usually, the wall that works best is the one opposite the door. However, if it has more windows and not as much wall space, then the wall to its side furthest from the door can work just as well. Wallapainting.com has some other tips on which walls work best as feature walls. For instance, walls that have naturally intriguing architectural features, such as a fireplace, can also be a great choice.
Use it as the base of a complementary color scheme
While your focal point should draw attention, it should also work well with the rest of the room’s decor. Of course, one of the best ways to do this is to have it be part of a color palette with your furniture and other decorative items. Complementary color palettes, as demonstrated at thespruce.com, tend to work better for rooms using feature walls. Have the wall serve as a base color that complements the main visual components of the rest of the room.
Or go bright and bold
A complementary color scheme can help a feature wall bolster the rest of the room. However, if that wall is meant to be the star of the show, then the opposite approach can work just as well. For instance, a neutral color room can be contrasted by a strong color to add a more dramatic tone to the room or to draw the eye more immediately the wall. This is better done for feature walls that have extra visual assets added to them to keep them interesting. Otherwise, you could be making a wall pop for no real reason and it won’t have quite the same effect in terms of engaging the viewer and drawing them in.
Make it stand out in texture and look
There are lots of ways you can decorate a wall and lots of decor pieces that you can put on it to help it stand out. However, you might only need to change the look of the wall itself to make it much more noticeable and eye-catching. Having one wall that looks or even feels different can do wonders to make it more naturally engaging. Cladding is perhaps one of the more expensive and thorough ways to do it, but even things like brick wall wallpaper from wallpaperboulevard.com can manage that change just as effectively. The contrast alone can be enough to draw plenty of attention to it.
Use your artistic eye
Of course, the wall itself doesn’t have to be the only star of the show. How you decorate the wall can be just as crucial in turning it into the feature wall that ties the whole home together. One of the most common ways to do this, and still an effective strategy, by all means, is to hang wall art on your wall. Sites like mydomaine.com can help you choose the types of art that best suit your general decor style, as well as your tastes. When it comes to wall art, falling in love is important, as it can quickly become an object of dislike if you don’t have any emotional attachment to it, thanks to the visual footprint it leaves.
Make it a place of memories
Wall art, of all kinds, is a visual representation of your aesthetic taste and, sometimes, your values. However, if you want your home to really give a close look into you, as a person, then the moments, people, and places that are important to you can play a role in decorating your feature wall, as well. One of the best ways to do this is to add a photo wall gallery of your own to it. Framing those important shots and how you position them can make a big difference and also gives your home a more warm and personal appeal.
Add your own designs to the wall
You don’t necessarily need new wallpaper, paint, or cladding to help a wall stand out from the others in the room. You can add a unique factor to it of your own making with just a little time and effort. Stenciling a wall might seem like quite a complicated task but cuttingedgestencils.com offers tips that can show how relatively simple it can be. There are all kinds of patterns and designs that you can add to the wall this way and you can choose all manner of colors to help establish your wall as the basis of the room’s entire color scheme, whether you go with complementary, boldly contrasting, or other types of color choices. Just make sure that you take your time and give it the appropriate level of detail.
Make the wall a host to things you love
Walls offer a lot of vertical storage and, as such, you don’t have to settle for simply hanging things from it. You can use a feature wall to play host to vignettes that act as a more detailed focal point. Vignettes are, essentially, collections of items that are arranged and displayed usually around a central theme or aesthetic and help to set the tone for the whole room. Vignettes often go on tables or other surfaces that draw the eye, but a feature wall, with the right shelves, can host a vignette just as easily. It can be a great way to combine two focal points into one, which can make it even more potent. For especially large feature walls, it helps to break them up and make them less monotonous, too.
Feature walls can be tricky but with the tips above you can make yours work as the focal point that your room needs.
