How to – wall design tips from a pro

Furnishing your own home in a style that makes you feel totally at ease takes quite a bit of organisation and time. The walls are often decorated right at the end when the furniture and accessories have already found their perfect spot.  

Beautiful living is not a question of money and it has nothing to do with expensive designer furniture. You can achieve a great deal with a bit of creativity and love for design as well as the willingness to invest the time in searching for the right home items and then rounding them off with a bit of skill and experience with personal aspects. In this post we are going to focus on wall design.

The Most Important Things at a Glance:

• The focus of your décor should not be on the furniture. Floors and walls are especially important. Pictures and collectables lend the room more depth and give your décor a personal touch.
• Things that are suitable to be used as wall decorations are art prints, paintings, picture walls, cityscapes, a plate collection, wallpaper, mirrors, and much more.
• The wall decoration should always be compatible with the style of the rest of your décor.
• Also coordinate the pictures in a room with one another –g. by similar colours, frames, styles, or materials.
• Use multi panel displays to visually expand smaller rooms.
• Use indirect lighting to illuminate your walls.

There are a few questions to clarify before you furnish a home. Would you like it to be rustic and cosy or would you prefer elegant and even opulent? Or do you prefer to mix the styles up? Also consider the size of the living space as this also plays a part – large rooms may be able to take darker colours, but with small rooms you should use light shades. These are just a few examples of what is important when designing a home.

We sat down with interior living expert Franziska Schmid from Wohnschmiede.ch about how important wall decorations are to her when furnishing a home.

Ms Schmid, which experiences do you have with your customers when it comes to furnishing advice and design?

A room extends from the floor over the walls to the ceiling. It involves more than the position of the sofa but also how the light falls, the acoustics, the mood, and much more. In my experience, too little attention is often paid to the floor and wall design. It’s often the wall decoration that produces a depth effect and lends a personal touch. My experience shows that when you ask the customer what they like most about the finished design, they usually point to a personal picture or cherished collector’s item. These are the things that make the décor personal and unique.

The walls in my home are still completely bare. Where on earth should I start?

From a furnishing perspective, the key thing is to coordinate the wall decorations with each other and with the living space.

First of all, think about which style and mood you want in the room. More cool and modern? Or cosy and intimate? Personal or typical? Pick out an art print, painting, photo wall, or cityscape based on this.

Then take your favourite piece in the room as the guide and choose an appropriate wall decoration. It doesn’t always have to be a picture… why not use a plate collection, wallpaper, mirror, or a whole tree as a wall design? Naturally, it looks really wonderful in combination with a personal motif.

I would like to give my home an especially personal touch and integrate my family photos. What’s the best way to do this in style?

The best thing to do is group personal items or pictures. Arrange them in a pattern on the wall, group them on a wall shelf, or stage your favourite motif in a big multi-panel wall arrangement. That’s how you can achieve a stylish and personal touch.

Which wall decorations are suitable for which spot in an apartment or house?

There’s no right or wrong here. You can hang the Picasso up in the guest toilet and holiday photos as a photo collage in the living room. At the end of the day, anything you like is allowed. On the other hand, you should consider the mood you want in the room. Coordinate the pictures with each other – for instance, print all the photos in black and white and frame them in the same colour. Or print them all on acrylic to achieve a glossy effect, and so on. You can already see that different materials play a part. Materials that create depth are great for small rooms. Glossy effects should be avoided if you are looking at the wall decoration from the side. Lots of artificial light results in reflection on glossy surfaces. You should consider using a light source here that is suitable for this or choose a matte surface. With spot lighting, make sure that there is not a glaring beam of light. Indirect light is also ideal for this as it produces a fantastic effect.

How do I hang my pictures up to create the right mood?

What’s important when hanging them up is the eye level. If you are usually looking at a picture sitting down, hang it relatively low. If you tend to look at it standing up, hang it up higher. Multi panel displays also offer a great opportunity to visually expand your rooms. They give the room the necessary length and make it look even more spacious.

What should I pay attention to in regard to colours? Can I combine colourful wall pictures with black and white pictures?

You most certainly can. However, try to find one unifying element. For example, always the same frame, the same motif, or the same picture size. If possible, form groups here too: e.g. nature pictures, family pictures, yellow pictures.

I personally prefer coordinating the pictures according to the room’s colours and overall style. The fusion of colours results in one harmonious single entity.