Interior Wall Design Ideas 2020

Owning your living space goes a long way in turning it into a personalised sanctuary. Feature walls are the best way to accentuate your dull home and give it a bit of flair. It’s also an ex way to show off, keeping your pesky competitive neighbours and relatives talking about the aesthetics of your home.

Some of the most magnificent interior home designs don’t factor in how deep your pockets run but rather your creative mind and artistic touch. You could use different paint, wallpaper, or go all-in for the texture and use timber or natural stone. However, these are not the only creative reasons and ideas for feature walls out there.

Reasons for getting a feature wall

1. Decorative focal point

Feature walls stand out from the rest of the walls covered in a neutral colour palette. While these may sometimes create a sense of unity and cohesion, they may also be plain and underwhelming. Reinforcing the room gives it more personality and acts as a decorative focal point.

2. Compliments the accessories and furniture used

Modern housing units may come with vintage curtains, carpets, and wooden furniture. A feature wall of the same stylistic design may complement the entire look if that what you were going for.

3. Covering a smudge

Feature walls are a great way of covering up irremovable stains and smudges. Moreover, repainting the entire wall can also be too costly and time-consuming. Slapping on a feature wall with a bolder colour can easily hide your messes and change the outlook of the entire room at the same time.

That said, here are some exciting feature wall designs for your modern-day home.

1. Colour Washing

You can finally put your Grade I colouring skills and become the next Picasso using the colour wash technique. Watercolours look great in well-lit rooms and can also work in dark rooms, depending on your colour choices. For the best results, go for a uniform colour or a splash to give it a messy artwork.

Unless you’re a great painter, do not go for specific portraits, or you may have to tear the whole wall down. The run-down watercolours are also suitable for creating waves, tree-lines, and edges. Contrasting colours may also go great with matching your furniture, seats, and throw pillows.

2. Going Solid Black

According to most interior decor bloggers, black is the new white. Having an entire wall painted in solid black could go well with green, white, purple, or red backdrops. You can also opt for a few other highlighted colours to spruce it up. However, note that the colour black quickly absorbs heat but is slow to disseminate it. Therefore, be very careful about which wall you’re going with as temperatures can rise fast in Australia.

3. Prints

Prints are just another way of saying fancy wallpapers laden with an oversized sticker or pattern. The good thing about prints and wallpapers is that it is easily customizable to suit your tastes. You could even design your own logo, print it up to scale, and slap it right across the wall for everyone to see.

Other print ideas could be something you’re passionate about, such as nature, cars, or sports. Be sure to get a print that’s repetitive and not centred. Conspicuous prints tend to be monotonous to look at after some time.

4. Blackboard or chalkboard paints

Whoever said learning ended on graduation day was clearly mental. It is possible to turn any wall of your house into a chalkboard or canvas for your notes, reminders, rules, or million-dollar ideas. Open bars and other classic restaurants are famous for adopting this style to showcase their menu and offers.

The chalkboard could also serve as a great feature wall for kitchens. You could invite your guests over for a dinner party and jot down what you’ll be serving them. However, note that this idea is only artistic if your handwriting is pleasing to look at.

5. Go green with a living wall

Since the world is going ‘Smart,’ living walls or otherwise known as vertical gardens, are the next big thing. Interior designers, architects, and known builders try to incorporate them into their designs, hoping to win awards, not to mention other benefits.

By now, you must have some idea of plants improving on air quality by purifying it. Moreover, aside from adding on to the serenity of your living area, smart walls also save on safe by plants that would otherwise occupy a horizontal position.

When mounted on walls outside the house, they can act as insulators from the sun and help regulate the house temperature. However, living walls require a lot of maintenance. Plus, their installation doesn’t come cheap either.

6. Paint one wall a punchy colour

Do not be afraid to stand out from the crowd by painting one wall a punchy tone. Different colour schemes have often been used to make bold statements. For example, pink has often been associated with the female gender, whereas blue stands for males mostly in baby showers. To others, these colours are arbitrary and don’t mean anything. Punchy colours such as lime green could set off your interior décor, especially when used next to a neutral base such as grey. 

7. Playbox

The Playbox is one of the best feature wall shelving ideas mostly incorporated into children’s bedrooms. You can easily divide up a feature wall into different cubes of different sizes and add a great colour backdrop. It’s a great way to create an extra shelf to store toys and keep the kids’ room neat and organised.

Aside from children, other people also have their ‘man cave‘ in their basements with their Ping-Pong tables and mini-fridges. You can just as easily install the play box feature wall in your basement and store your trophy collection.

8. Using the natural texture of the wall

Depending on your taste of art, an unfinished wall could stand out of the rest that is polished. Other instances can also arise when you’re trying to switch from one colour palette to another by scraping off the paint. This idea can easily save you the trouble of repainting the wall and leave it as it is with the industrial look of the concrete. Most motels made from brick adopt this style and typically have the feature wall around the fireplace.

9. Geometric Patterns

You could never go wrong with shapes and patterns. Most Geometric patterns are found on wallpapers and will give your room an optical illusion once they are installed. There is also an emerging trend of having feature wallpaper 3D to immerse the user into the platform when viewed from a different angle. Geometric patterns are visually arresting but not overpowering when used only once. You could even have two feature walls overlooking each other just to complement the 3D touch.

10. Photo Wall

If you’re really looking to capture the eyes of any guests, then this is probably the best feature wall idea yet. Print out pictures of your family and bring them up to scale. Get that collage of beautiful memories or favourite family photographs and slap them all onto a wall.

Who needs frames of family portraits when you can have a photo feature wall along your hallway? You can also organise the photos in such a way that transitions from recent to older memories giving your guests a walk through your younger to older self.

Polaroid pictures already come out printed and could quickly bring out an even photo wall. Another great idea is to use kid’s drawings or use it to hang up your certificates and really rub it onto people’s faces.

11. World Map

Not many people have a clue as to which country borders them to the right/left. Others have no idea of the continents and their location because let’s face it; Geography wasn’t the easiest of subjects. It’s right up there with Math and Chemistry.

The World Map feature wall is an excellent tool for travel bloggers and people who like to go on vacation. They could easily come back and highlight places they have already been to and mark the next one. It’s also a great way to nab international law offenders by studying their criminal patterns, as seen in many crime-solving films.

12. Night Sky

The night sky feature wall is perfect for a nursery of a newly born baby. It’s easy to install and doesn’t need a professional to do it. It’s one of those DIY’s that have you installing murals at the ceiling of a room. Others prefer using glow in the dark stickers to bring the night sky alive during the night. However, these will need some source of light to make them glow. The night sky isn’t just for nurseries; you could even add to your study and other places of relaxation.

13. Reclaimed Wood

The use of reclaimed wood gives it a rustic look. It also brings out a different texture to the walls. The best way to style up your place using this idea is to use wood of different shapes and shades of brown. It will give the room a homey, yet raw feel. If you have a handyman inside the house, get him to hammer down the old wood into the wall. However, you may have to watch out for splinters and termites.

14. Cork Board

The Cork Board feature wall idea copies on the chalkboard. They are visually exciting whorls and knots of patterns mounted on softwood. You could easily hang your portraits, to-do-list, or certificates on the Corkboard to save on space. However, be careful not to have everything cluttered into one area.

Sadly, the Corkboard may lose its aesthetics after poking holes into it for long periods. The texture of the wall may also be rougher as when it ages. Water is definitely a danger zone to the Corkboard, especially when mopping the house.

15. Monochrome

Monochrome feature walls are made up of two colours of contrasting tones. It’s one of the simplest ways of creating a feature wall when using paint. Black and white offers the simplest of contrast and can be created using vertical or horizontal stripes. Vertical stripes are a tremendous monochromatic source of optical illusions as they give the room a feeling that the ceiling is higher. Horizontal lines, on the other, are best in tiny rooms to provide it with a broader sensation.

16. Clocks

Everyone knows that clocks are placed strategically in a home to tell time. The choice of an oversized clock and placing it onto a wall automatically makes it the focal point of the room. By so doing, you will have unknowingly created a feature wall.

The market is already flooded with different clock designs, each with an artsy form. You can easily shop for one that catches your eye and install it in your home.

17. Tile a Chimney

Not all apartments come with a designated chimney. If yours has one, then you’re onto a winner. Most chimney patters conform to a brick layout to bring out a rustic feel and look. However, modern homes have adopted the use of tiles on their floors, bathrooms as well as their chimneys.

The good thing about tiles is its array of different patterns. Most people don’t like having to clean up the soot afterwards and go for a darker tiled feature wall for their chimneys.

18. Zebra print

The Zebra print is one of the many stencil designs out there mostly found on wallpapers. Depending on how well lit your room is, you could go for lighter or darker shades of the black or even stick with grey. They are easy to apply to a plain wall and just as easy to remove when you want to try something new. This feature wall design is probably best to install in your home office or study room.

19. Using Fabric

If a soft texture is eye-catching, then you can just as easily create a feature wall using fabric. In most cases, lightweight cotton is preferred, or liquid fabric starch may also do the trick. A simple DIY hack will be to use an old bedsheet as a wallpaper. You can remove the creases and bubbles using a paint roller after applying a thin coat of starch. Leave it to dry and have yourself a home-made fabric feature wall.

Adding Venetian Plaster to your Feature Wall

Once you have selected which wall or ceiling to turn into a feature wall, the next stage is to apply Venetian plaster, also known as marble plaster.

What is Venetian Plaster?

It’s an ancient traditional polished plaster consisting of lime putty and marble dust used for decorative effect. Once applied, it will give the wall a glossy feeling, a high sheen, and ease on the texture to match that of marble glass.

Other than its decorative effect, Venetian plaster can also regulate the humidity of the room if applied correctly. This is more effective when it’s done on the ceilings. It’s also advantageous on walls since most are made using hypoallergenic materials.

How to Apply Venetian Plaster?

If you have experience painting a room, then automatically qualifies you to use the Venetian plaster. It’s typically applied over a base coat or a primer. Depending on the size and conditions of the room, you may need the following tools

• Paintbrush  • Roller  • Roller cover  • Drop Cloth  • Paint tray  • Gloves  • Eye Goggles

 Step 1: Applying the first coat

Once the safety gloves and goggles are one, start with the corner of the room and apply the plaster. Be sure to evenly spread it across every each and keep the surface smooth. Leave to dry

Step 2: Applying the second coat

This second coating is usually preferred for filling the voids and removing high spots you might have missed during the first application. Similarly, the layer may also dry off and leave cracks that you may need to cover during the second application.

Be sure to use the same colour when applying the second coat of Venetian plaster and give it at least a day to dry.

Step 3: Burnishing the surface

Using sandpaper or any other rough paper, rub the surface of the plaster in a circular motion and clean it with a damp cloth. You can also polish the surfaces further using the flat side of a trowel.

Step 4: Adding the topcoat

Although this final step can be done once the plaster has dried after the second coating, a more polished look is achievable in rooms with high moisture content. This is particularly necessary if you’re installing a feature wall in washrooms. After the top coat has dried, you can finally burnish the surface once more. Paste wax is mainly an excellent topcoat contender.

Conclusion

Great feature wall ideas are easy to come up with if you love artsy stuff. If you’re not sure about where to look, Pinterest is an excellent place to start your search. Once you’re done, be sure to add the Venetian plaster for that glossy marble look and feel.