We all have or have had at least one room in the house that is, let’s face it, boring.
There are many ways to make a room more interesting, and create a better feeling as you live inside it, flooring, décor, furnishings…
The largest part of each room in your house is the wall space, so how do you make that more attractive, impactful and interesting? You have two main variants to play with: texture and colour.
Paint
The cheapest and most common way to change they look of the room’s walls is by painting them. You can choose a subtle colour, a bolder dark or vibrant colour, or somewhere in between. Be aware when painting, that the colour you choose will have to complement the surrounding colours from fixtures, fittings and furniture.
One solid (even if vibrant) colour may not quite give the effect and impact that you’re looking for though. You may want to look into colour blocking, stencilling or murals. Paint also doesn’t give much if any texture to the space, so you’ll have to get that somewhere else.
Wallpaper
The other commonly understood product to use is wallpaper. This gives you the option to go for off the shelf patterns (although now you can create your own designs even) to give extra life to your interiors. They range from subtle to extravagant, and you’ll need to settle on what works best for you. With wallpaper, you also have a few options to add a little texture in there too.
Cladding
Adding something extra to your walls is what will give it more impact. It means you can combine the colour and texture elements together. You have a few options here- there are very bold looks such as ‘live walls’ or the artificial version of them, as if plants are growing on the wall. A popular option recently has been timber cladding, from full walls to painted panelling, either DIY or from a kit. You could also go for a more basic approach with ceramic tiles.
One method combines the textural and colour element perfectly – brick slips. The method of creating a brick means texture will not only be there, but will be organic and unique to each one, creating a whole different look. Reclaimed style brick slips have an amazing amount of texture, making a huge impact on the room, but with something recognisable as potentially part of the building’s structure. The reclaimed style has another benefit: a pre-aged look, meaning you’re not looking at something that will go out of style.
What Next?
Once you’ve chosen your wall options, you need to create the space in that image – either complementing colours, or leaning into a style. With paint and wallpaper, fabrics are very important to create a well rounded space, adding textures to the mix.
If you’re going for something like brick slips or wooden cladding you can keep to that style with chunky wooden furniture, industrial style lights and metal features for example to keep the overall effect. Bear in mind that you need to balance your colour palette throughout.
The most important factors in taking a room from boring to impressive are the way you manage colour and texture against the look you want to create, it’s a very personalised process and you need to know how far you want to go with each of those factors to create the space that works for you, and makes you happy.
