Also known as accent walls, feature walls are a rapidly growing home décor trend that enables homeowners to add interest to a room through different textures, shapes, colours, and patterns to contrast with the rest of its surroundings.
Typically feature walls are favoured by homeowners since they allow you to use decorative elements in a quick way. Depending on the types of materials selected, they can be as expensive or cost-effective as the individual desires.
Depending on your tastes, you can implement an accent wall to create a significant or subtle impact in a room, draw attention to a particular area, or you may want to break up an already existing colour, pattern, texture, or theme.
Whichever goal you have in mind, we’ve created this article detailing how you can create a feature wall in your own home to help your space look unique and stand apart from the crowd.
Choose A Stark, Bold Colour
When we think of the interior of most houses, the rooms are usually painted in neutral colours such as white, cream, grey, beige, etc., so the rest of the décor can easily be incorporated. Feature walls are famed for being vibrant and breaking away from these traditional colours so that it contrasts against the rest of the walls in the room.
Be brave with your choice, and don’t be afraid to choose a stark, bold colour, pattern or texture that will compliment your space. You could even opt for materials such as wallpaper or Minoli tiles, which are available in various colours, patterns or finishes like marble, stone, wood, or concrete.
If you’d like to find out more about Minoli tiles and if they’d be easily incorporated into your feature wall plans, look at the extensive range of Minoli tiles from Hyperion that are perfect for accent walls. Peruse their product offerings and consider contacting a team member to assist with your feature wall dreams.
Consider The Location
Before you start looking at wallpaper, paint, and Minoli tiles, you’ll need to consider the location of your feature wall, where it would look best and measurements. Ideally, you want your accent wall to be in a prime location that guests and family members notice as soon as they enter or exit the room so that it gets the attention it deserves.
You’ll also need to consider the size of the wall and any surrounding furnishings so that it’s not obstructed too much. Choose a wall with the least number of furnishings, for instance, the one behind the T.V or the sofa and try to avoid ones with doors and windows so that it stands alone as a decorative element.
Also, be prepared to shift furniture around the room potentially. At the same time, you decide on an ideal location for your accent wall, as doing so will help you determine which area is best and which wall your eyes naturally gravitate to.
Experiment With Accessories
Usually, when homeowners create an accent wall, they endeavour to include the focal point of the proposed location within the feature to complement each other. However, there are instances where rooms don’t have an existing focal point, yet a feature wall will be implemented.
Homeowners can work around this by experimenting with various accessories and using them to create their own focal points. Although depending on whether you’ve painted, wallpapered, or tiled your feature wall, your choice of accessories can vary greatly.
Painted feature walls are much easier to decorate, whereas decorating wallpapered and tiled ones can run the risk of looking gaudy. We recommend decorating painted walls with art in various shapes and sizes or floating shelves.
If you don’t know what to accessorise your wall with, you could consider using candles, photos, pretty dishware, glassware or looking online for more inspiration. Although, ensure that you are strict with the number of accessories you add to your new feature wall; otherwise, it can end up taking focus away from the feature wall.
The key is to decorate sparely but well enough to enhance your creation instead of making it look cluttered and potentially assaulting the eyes of friends and family members.
Incorporate Your Focal Point
The purpose of an accent wall is to try and gravitate visitors’ eyes towards the room’s best architectural aspects and decorative features without being an assault on the eyes. If you already have an existing focal point within the room where you propose implementing a feature wall, we recommend using the accent wall to highlight this; otherwise, they will work counterproductively and make the room look too loud and chaotic.
To identify your room’s focal point, stand back and ask yourself which part of this room you would take a photo of right now to upload to your Instagram story? Whichever part that is, that’s most likely the focal point of your room.
Whether this is your T.V setup, a cosy reading area, the layout of your dining table or a fireplace, adding a feature wall behind this focal point will allow the two to work in tandem and highlight the features already in place.