What is a Feature Wall?
Feature walls aren’t a new concept. Interior designers have been using them for decades as a way to create interest and introduce new materials, textures and colours into spaces. Most homes tend to choose conservative colours and styles. That makes a good canvas for adding personality to a home you might not have built, but it does mean some houses feature pretty underwhelming design. With the right materials and execution, a feature wall can have a huge visual impact that ties spaces together, reinforces your styling and helps set the mood for the entire house.
Similar to using wall decorations like artwork, feature walls create a strong focal point for your home. Unlike simpler design features though, turning an entire wall into a feature has the potential to be the centrepiece for planning or updating your home’s aesthetic.
Choosing the Material for Your Feature Wall
Feature walls come in all shapes and sizes. The only real limit is your imagination! Depending your home’s aesthetic, colour scheme and design cues, you could choose to go in a few different directions when creating a feature wall:
Paint. Paints are a great way to create a feature wall. They’re cost-effective, easy to apply, DIY-friendly and you can even get textured paints that add interest to a room.
Wallpaper. A step up from paints, wallpaper is often the best way to create a striking feature with intricate patterns, designs and details.
Tiles. For those chasing a more sophisticated finish, tiles offer one of the most attractive and visually stunning wall surfaces. Often created using natural stone tiling, tiled feature walls add colour, interest, texture and depth to a home, enhancing the sense that your spaces have been carefully curated. Unlike paint or wallpaper, tiles contain natural colours and textures, making them the perfect counterpoint to modern design styles.
Tips on Choosing Which Wall to Feature
Just as important as choosing the right material is selecting the walls you want to make into features. The ideal feature wall is one that makes a statement. Your choice of feature wall should depend on your home’s design and what you want to achieve:
Add shape to your space. Feature walls are designed to capture the eye, so you can use that to your advantage. For example, horizontal lines can elongate a space or draw the eye to a certain point, or geometric patterns can balance out more natural shapes supplied by things like curved furniture. Ideally, your feature wall won’t just look good, it will also tie together the various design elements of a room.
Draw attention to parts of your home. Already have a beautiful design feature like a fireplace? Making that design element into your feature wall can turn it into the hero piece of the room. Similarly, the lines of a feature wall could be used to draw eyes towards things like a stunning view.
Divide rooms and spaces. Without needing to close off a room entirely, feature walls can be used to create visual separation between conjoined spaces.
Avoid clashing design elements. Feature walls work best when they’re allowed to stand on their own. Avoid choosing walls with windows or other complex shapes like cabinetry. Cramming too many elements onto a single wall simply creates confusion.