Nick Dow's blog : Tips for choosing wallpaper for small spaces
It is believed that the owners of small spaces are limited in the choice of
finishing materials, including wallpaper. And those shades, patterns and
drawings that look beautiful on the walls of spacious interiors will visually
reduce the already insignificant volumes of typical apartments. Is it
really? Not really! With a thoughtful approach, application can be
found not only for smooth, familiar beige canvases, but also for ornamental, as
well as color-rich coatings. We analyze the main tips that will help you
choose wallpaper for a small office and other rooms.
1. Add heat
Rooms "facing" north need additional "heating". Here,
wall coverings of warm shades will come to the rescue. They should be
chosen carefully - only whitened golden, lemon or orange canvases will give the
desired result. Dense and saturated red and even yellow wallpapers, of
course, will bring a little warmth to the “atmosphere”, but at the same time
they will optically reduce the area of the room.
2. Lower the degree
If the windows of the room to be repaired are facing south or west, then in the
morning or, conversely, in the afternoon, at sunset, there is probably an excess
of sunlight in the room. You can “reduce the temperature” in the room
using wallpaper in cold shades, say, gray, blue or light green. Along the
way, they will "work" on the space - they will correct it by visually
pushing the walls apart and increasing the footage.
It is not necessary to choose a blue-based wallpaper - a similar effect can be
easily achieved due to the base light coating with a blue ornament.
3. Play with contrast
Decorators call this technique an accent wall - use contrasting (in relation to
the coverings of the other three walls) wallpapers for pasting one wall out of
four. Then this vertical plane will dominate the rest, and the boundaries
of the room will be blurred (example in the photo).
4. Smooth - ugly
It is better to immediately refuse to stick smooth homogeneous canvases - the
walls will look dull, and therefore require the active use of paintings,
posters, photographs. The abundance of wall decor will not benefit a small
room - it will "become" even smaller. Therefore, we advise you
to abandon the idea of such a design.
5. Bet on the texture
In the case of small rooms, embossed canvases are considered a win-win
option. And regardless of how many colors are used to "print"
them - one or more. The "frankness" of the texture is completely
unimportant: even a slight, barely noticeable relief has a positive effect on
the visual perception of small volumes.
At the same time, the more noticeable the latter, the more obvious the play of
light and shadow will appear and, of course, the more spacious the room will
look.
6. More shine!
With a lack of footage, preference should not be given to matte,
light-absorbing coatings, but to wallpaper with at least a minimum
reflectivity. It is quite enough if individual fragments of the patterns
covering the canvas will moderately “shine”.
7. Not only the size of the
ornament is important, but its saturation
There is an opinion that large ornaments are not shown to small-sized
rooms. Allow me to disagree! The point is not the size of the
pattern, but its color and "presence" in the room. If we are
talking about canvases that are neutral in tone (white, beige, etc.), decorated
with a low-contrast pattern, then they can be safely used for pasting all the
walls of the room.
8. Limit Active
Patterns apply them in "homeopathic doses", combine with other
coatings. So we will be able to "put" a semantic point, focusing
on the most important part of the room. In addition, the colorful vertical
plane will visually move away, and the footage of the room will appear larger.
9. Geometry - strength
Another, I note right away, an erroneous opinion is often expressed in relation
to canvases with a geometric pattern. Say, stripes, cages, ikats,
lattices, chevrons, different circles and squares negatively affect the
well-being of those who are in their environment. This statement is only
partly correct. Indeed, in a small room, where all the walls are “lined” -
from floor to ceiling, fatigue is guaranteed, and almost immediately.
But if, for example, a “stripe” or an image resembling it was used to decorate only one vertical plane, then the positive aspects of this type of wallpaper will appear, as in the office with the photo above. A vertically located pattern will raise the ceiling, oriented horizontally will correct the geometry of the room for the better.
10. Build a
"palisade"
It provides exactly the same effect as striped wallpaper. At the same
time, this technique allows the combination of different canvases, differing
not only in color and plot, but also in width. In addition, among its
strengths is the ability to vary the “step” of the canvases involved in the
combination. In other words, the wall covering will no longer turn out to
be tediously monotonous, and therefore it can be used to decorate absolutely
all the walls in the room.
Tip: The more contrast the
canvases that make up the composition are, the higher the ceilings will appear.
11. Divide and Conquer
If the main drawback of the room is a low ceiling, "break" the walls
in height. To implement the idea, you will need two types of
wallpaper. The main condition for the harmony of the selected
"tandem": the colors and plots of the canvases used must be combined
with each other. More often, the lower third or half of the wall is pasted
over with darker wallpaper, and the rest with light coatings. The reverse
option - light bottom, dark top - is also quite viable.
Scandinavian
The Scandinavian
style in the interior has been popular for several years and, it seems, is not
going to give up its positions. Natural materials, moderate minimalism,
spacious bright rooms and, of course, furniture "on legs" - these are
the features for which we love this style so much. Are there wallpapers in
the Scandinavian style? How to choose them so that they complement the
trendy interior and become its decoration? We tell and show in our new
article.
Scandinavian style is not only white and gray
Where does such a love for light interiors come from? The fact is that
Scandinavian countries are cold. The sun is as rare a visitor there as it
is here in St. Petersburg (very rare!). The lack of daylight has to be
compensated in bright interiors. Does this mean that the walls in
apartments with Scandi-style interiors can only be white or light
gray? No, although such options are common. In fact, in an apartment
with a Scandinavian interior it is possible to find wallpapers:
plain
Geometric
print
With
flowers and plants
With
abstraction
With
imitation of natural materials
- Expert