Accent wall update part deux! Trends in wallpaper accent walls

February 21, 2013 8 Comments

I wrote about wallpaper accent walls last spring, but since we’re seeing them EVERYWHERE, I think we should examine the latest trends. Don’t you?

But first, a reminder: follow the same rules you would for PAINTED accent walls. Accentuate unbroken, prominent walls. The best wall is usually the first one you see when you enter the room.

Gray geometric wallpaper accent wall

  • Trend #1: more wallpaper accent walls behind beds…as headboards, really.

Green and white wallpaper accent wall behind bed

Metallic wallpaper accent wall behind bed as headboard

  • Trend #2: framed wallpaper.

Yellow and white wallpaper framed

  • Trend #3: Wallpaper accents in nooks and insets.  Below, the wallpaper (which I’m pretty certain is by Manuel Canovas) turns a potentially awkward space into an interesting feature.

Toile wallpaper on bedroom inset wall

  • Trend #4: Wallpaper on fireplace walls. I have mixed feelings about this one. I don’t generally recommend wallpapering a fireplace wall; I think the fireplace provides enough of a focal point. But the wallpaper is a sweet addition here…

Floral wallpaper around fireplace

…and here, where it frames the fireplace most effectively.

Black and white wallpaper accent wall

Seeing as how I seem to be on a one-woman campaign to bring wallpaper into every single house on the planet, I’ll leave you with a few more thoughts:

  • Remember that wallpaper accent walls are especially terrific if you don’t have a lot of art.
  • Wallpaper accent walls can be particularly interesting in a stairwell. Try this instead of hanging family pictures up the stairs, as so many of us do. That’s a fine look, but unless each photograph is double-hung, they’re going to get knocked off-kilter every time your toddler (or teenager, or Goldendoodle) bounds down the stairs. How fabulous is this Osborne & Little dog wallpaper? It’s called, appropriately, “Best in Show.”

Osborne & Little black and white dog wallpaper

And of course you remember Nina Campbell’s Paradiso wallpaper in bossy color’s stairwell.

Nina Campbell's Paradiso wallpaper

  • Finally, do not do a wallpaper accent wall in a really tiny space, like a powder room. Go big and do the whole room, or leave it alone.

Farrow & Ball Rosslyn wallpaper in powder room

Wallpaper, Gentle Readers. An accent wall is the easiest way yet to make it your friend.

Many thanks to everyone who submitted questions to The Washington Post’s Home Chat last week with Jura Koncius! An excerpt ran in yesterday’s Local Living section of the Post. Thank you!

Quoted in publications from The New York Times to The Washington Post to Real Simple magazine, Annie Elliott is considered an expert in color, residential space planning, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible. Her interior design firm, bossy color, has been serving residents in the greater Washington, D.C. area since 2004.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Bedroom, Color, Stairs, Wallpaper Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The wallpaper accent wall

May 28, 2012 24 Comments

Here’s my final push for wallpaper.

If, after all my eloquent, experience-based research, you’re still unsure about wallcovering, let me confess something. Whereas I have VERY mixed feelings about The Accent Wall when it comes to paint, wallpaper accent walls are another story.

Red and white wallpaper accent wall in kitchen

Alex Papachristodis in Elle Decor

A wallpaper accent wall is less expensive, less difficult to estimate and install, and less risky than tackling a whole room. And it can be very effective.

Blue and white floral wallpaper accent wall in dining room

From the blog Retropolitan

Remember, though: even though you’re using less wallpaper, you still must decorate responsibly!

Wallpaper the most important wall in the room: the wall with the fireplace, the wall your desk faces, or the wall the sofa or headboard leans against.

Wallpaper accent wall in child's bedroom

Peter Pawlak in Elle Decor. Alphabet wallpaper by Alexander Girard.

Wallpaper the wall with the fewest – if any – window and door openings.

Blue and white peacock feather accent wall in office

From the blog buckboard hill interiors

Or if you feel you’re without an appropriate wall to cover, wallpaper the back of a built-in bookcase with a faux textured wallpaper or grasscloth.

Grasscloth wallpaper accent wall behind shelves

Elle Decor, via Maria Killam's excellent blog, Colour Me Happy

If this doesn’t convince you to try wallpaper, Gentle Readers, I’m out of ideas! Well, I’m not, but I said that for dramatic emphasis, with a foot stamp and hand fling for good measure. Give it a try.

Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. She has been quoted in publications from The New York Times to Real Simple and is considered an expert on color, residential space planning, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Bookshelves, Built-ins, Color, Wall covering, Wallpaper Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Remember my client’s gray DR? It has an art wall now!

December 11, 2010 18 Comments

Not so long ago, I spoke with you about “art walls.” We started with WHAT to Hang, then moved on to how to FRAME it, and then how to HANG it.

Seems I got one of my clients all riled up.

There’s a gigantic blank wall in her cheerful gray dining room…

Gray dining room

…(remember this room? It’s painted Benjamin Moore’s AC-28 Smoke Embers, with a Thomas Paul Roman Shade)…

Thomas Paul fabric Roman Shade

…well, that big blank wall was starting to get on her nerves.

So she went on kind of an art bender. She gathered up every framed picture in her entire house AS WELL AS stacks of pretty cards a dear friend sent her over the years.

And then she called me to come make sense of it.

Postcards

It was a little overwhelming at first. But pretty quickly we decided to group the larger, already framed pictures in other parts of the house, and feature these postcards – which were not only pretty, but meaningful to my client – in the dining room.

Postcards

The postcards weren’t all the same shape or exactly the same size, but we determined that most of them would fit into an 8 x 8″ frame.

So we chose 16 cards with the idea that we would hang them in a grid: 4 up, 4 across.

8x8 picture frameChoosing was no small task. But we based the decisions on how well the cards worked together as well as how much we liked each one individually.

Then we ordered 16 square frames from a random online source. (Worked out fine.)

THEN – and this was the most expensive part of the project – we had an off-white mat cut for each postcard. I think it cost about $11 per mat. It was CRITICAL, though: the mats and the frames are the unifying element. Et voila:

Art wall hung in grid

There’s 1-1/4″ between each frame, in case you’re wondering.

We hung these while the client was at work, and later that evening I got a voicemail that said, “ANNIE! I just got home and I LOVE LOVE LOOOVVVEE lovelovelovelovelovelove the art wall!”

So I think she likes it  :)

Art hung in a grid

Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. She’s also the creator of the “bossy basic,” a one-time service that jump-starts the interior design process in your home.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Art, Before and after, Benjamin Moore, Client project, Dining room Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to create the perfect art wall: 1. What to hang

November 8, 2010 12 Comments

“Art walls” have been on my mind for weeks.

Sort of a clunky term, but it’s descriptive. “Salon grouping” is more elegant, and I seem to remember the phrases, “masterpiece hanging” and “gallery hanging” from graduate school…but I could be making those up.

4 art walls

From Art4Friends

When I found myself suggesting that a Gentle Reader create an art wall in her apartment, I thought it was time to elaborate. Because, look. It’s hard to find big, grownup, affordable pieces of art that you love. And there are a lot of blank walls out there.

Hanging a group of smaller pictures can be a more realistic solution. (Not to mention more flexible and fun.)

Curved staircase art wall

i on Design through Elle Decor

ECLECTIC GROUPING

You must have something that’s meaningful to you. A postcard? Wine labels you collected on your honeymoon? Ticket stubs? A silly sketch? The list you used to carry around in your Filofax enumerating the qualities your perfect mate would have and then when you met him you gave him the list with a checkmark next to each thing?

Maybe you don’t have that last one.

Eclectic art wall

Domino Magazine (RIP) through All the Best

But the point is this: if you want an eclectic grouping, start with something you love. Then mix it in with art you buy online, other personal things, and even an object or two.

If the thing you love is tiny, put it against a mat in a larger frame. Framing larger is safer. Effective art walls mix sizes and scale, but for the novice, it’s safest to say that no piece should be smaller than 8 x 10″ (although you could throw in single 5 x 7″. )

Art wall over dresser

From House Obsession

ART GROUPING

If, after all the time we’ve spent together, you tell me you don’t know where to buy art, I will weep.

Huge art wall

From Roseland Greene

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can appear interesting and tasteful without changing out of your pjs.

You’ve heard me expound the virtues of Etsy

Yee Haw on Etsy

"Pumpkin letterpress print," by Yee Haw, Etsy

and 20×200.

Amy Jean Porter, 20x200

"Rose-breasted Grosbeak," by Amy Jean Porter, 20x200

Add to that list the New York Public Library and the Smithsonian Institution for prints of all sizes.

New York Public Library digital print collection

San Francisco (1851). NYPL Print Collection.

SIMILAR THINGS GROUPING

Maps. New Yorker cartoons (consider xeroxing them larger than the originals). English bird or botanical prints. Black and white engravings.

Black and white art wall, Elle Decor

Elle Decor

Even pieces of wallpaper. I’ve mentioned this post before, but Gait Interiors blog has a lovely tutorial on using wallpaper as art.

Framed wallpaper art wall

From Gait Interiors

Start gathering, Gentle Readers! Next time, I’ll tell you how to frame it.

Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is a recovering art historian. She is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. specializing in paint colors, space planning, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Accessories, Art, Art you can live with, Artist, Living room Tagged With: , , ,

Accent wall checklist. You asked about it, kind of.

March 30, 2010 13 Comments

Hi Annie, I know that you aren’t particularly fond of accent walls,* but my husband wants one in our family room! Our kitchen opens up into the family room. We have white cabinets and we are painting the walls in the kitchen Benjamin Moore’s New Providence Navy. In the family room, three out of the four walls will be painted with B. Moore’s Yorkshire Tan.


The problem is which wall to accent w/the navy color in the family room. I think it should be the wall w/the Palladian window, but my husband thinks that the fireplace wall should be accented…

BTW – disregard everything in the photos except the walls b/c we are doing the room over from top to bottom.

Thanks Annie for any suggestions you may have! – Ann Marie


Dear Ann Marie,

I’m so glad you’re bringing this up, because *I have gotten such a bad rap about “the accent wall.” I simply feel it is more susceptible to abuse than any other design device. Perhaps because it’s so easy to paint? Because it’s a relatively low-risk way of making the painter believe he or she is being creative?

I am not flat-out opposed to the accent wall. In fact, I recently suggested that a Gentle Reader in Canada use a dark purple accent wall in her dining area.

And in this apartment, I suggested blue accent walls in the guest bedrooms – white on the other walls. Very edgy.

I myself have been known to use accent walls, most recently in my very own office. (The accent wall – first orange, then gray – has since been painted over, but I enjoyed it at the time.)


Yes, Ann Marie: bossy color believes that there is a time and place for everything, even the accent wall.

Except in your living room.

It pains me to say this, because you already may have acted. But there are so many windows in your already open family room that a dark accent wall will chop things up further. Especially one that’s so dark. (1651 New Providence Navy is a beautiful color, by the way. I think it will look great in your kitchen.)

These are the acceptable situations in which to use an accent wall.

  • To define an area within a larger space. The dining or living end of a larger, multi-use room, for example.

  • Or if the room is enclosed and extremely boring. i.e., a bedroom with a doorway on one wall and a window on another. In this case, it’s ok to paint the UN-windowed UN-doored wall – the wall the head of the bed will be against – an accent color.

BUT, if:

  • You love vivid colors but think that using it on all 4 walls would be too much, you must stop. This is not enough of a reason.
  • You want a splash of color but don’t know how else to do it, your also must stop. The accent wall should not be a default decision. There are lots of other ways to incorporate color. A bright rug. A series of smaller accents in the same color: pillows, throw, lamp. Highly effective, less of a commitment.
  • You are at a loss as to how to bring interest to a space, stop and contact bossy color immediately.

Again, Ann Marie, I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t give you better news. It’s not always easy being bossy color, but I take the responsibility very, very seriously.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Living room, You asked...

You asked…about blue, blue, blue!

February 5, 2010 11 Comments

It’s my understanding that painting each room in an apartment a different color is a no-no, in terms of flow, so I’m wondering how many colors to use in a two-bedroom.


I’m definitely a fan of bright/vibrant colors, so I don’t want it to be jarring as you move from room to room. I know I want the living room to be blue (along these lines, maybe a bit darker), but don’t know where to switch it up.


I’m attaching a very MS Paint, not-to-scale floorplan and a picture of the main room w/kitchen ahead and mini hallway w/bathroom and bedrooms to the right. Any thoughts, if my question even makes sense? Thanks!


Gentle Reader, your question is so timely! My March House Beautiful popped through my mail slot the other day, and this is the cover:


In wanting a blue living room, your finger is on the pulse of interior design trends, and you didn’t even know it. Good for you!

When people – myself included – generally say not to paint each room a different color, we mean a different strong, vibrant, totally unrelated color. If all the colors are soft, or all the colors are variations on green, etc., of course you can have different colors in different rooms.

One of the reasons the blue works in your inspiration picture is that there is also brick in that room. It breaks things up.

You do not have brick. But have no fear, Gentle Reader. I have an alternate plan. It’s pretty bossy, but I’m not going to waste time on a tame solution for you.

1. Choose the blue for the living room. Because you don’t have a brick wall or other break-things-up device, let’s make the blue a bit lighter than your inspiration picture. We’ll keep it vibrant, though – these are not subtle colors.

Turquoise is Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2010, but I have mixed feelings about that…let’s just find a blue with some warmth in it and call it a day.

You might like Benjamin Moore’s 2066-40 Rocky Mountain Sky. 2060-40 Toronto Blue has a little more aqua in it, although it’s hard to tell on screen.

2. Keep the trim (and ceiling, believe it or not) stark white. That will make the room feel pop-py and fresh. If the apartment was painted recently, you might be able to get away with not painting the trim or ceiling again.

3. Paint the other rooms in your apartment white. Ben Moore’s Super White is a favorite of mine.

4. Use the long, unbroken wall in each bedroom (opposite the door) as an accent wall. You’ll have the intense color, but not the panic attack associated with rooms that OD’d on saturated color. Here’s the really important, bossy part: use blues or blue-greens. They can be darker than the LR. Look at:

- 2056-30 Surf Blue
- 2066-20 Evening Blue
- 2067-30 Twilight Blue
- and, what the heck, 2045-20 Lawn Green.

This will give you some continuity and edginess while not turning your apartment into a cave.

You might want to try Benjamin Moore’s Natura paint, by the way. If you don’t have grubby-fingered little children running around, you may not need Aura‘s scrubbable properties, but Natura is still zero-VOC.

(Warning: those links have sound. Not obnoxious sound, but sound. Just in case you’re supposed to be doing something other than reading bossy blog. Hard to imagine that anything could be more important, but…)

Good luck, and let us know what you decide!

P.S. I would like bossy blog’s Gentle Readers to know that I wrote this blog entry while my 5-1/2 year olds were blasting Lady Gaga downstairs. Mostly Telephone and Bad Romance. Over and over. So if you hear a disco beat in the background of this entry, that’s why.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Color, Living room, Paint, Small Spaces

Thanks, Washingtonian.com’s Blogger Beat!

July 22, 2009 10 Comments

Bossy color is featured in Washingtonian.com‘s “Blogger Beat” column today. Thanks, Washingtonian! Some of my wittier comments were left on the cutting room floor, but the interview includes some decent tips – especially about the ever-popular accent wall. Well, I suppose tips are more important than pithy comments anyway… :)

Thanks for making bossy blog such a success, Gentle Readers, and thanks again, Washingtonian.com!

Filed Under: Accent wall, Interview with bossy color, Press, Small Spaces, Thanks

You asked…about decorating a narrow apartment, on a budget

June 26, 2009 5 Comments

Hi Annie,
I’ll be a medical student next year and have finally rented a place where the landlord will let me paint the walls and decorate as I wish….I have no idea where to start!

I was trying to think of what would go well with [the black kitchen counters and my tan couch, similar to the chair at right], and I can only think of some shade of red. Would that work and are there any other options? I was mulling over the idea about only accent painting the wall with the main window.

Also, the apartment is long but very narrow – are there any designs which would help me utilize the space as well as possible without it looking too small?…

Thanks so much! I love your blog!
Sincerely, Lucy



A: Hi, Lucy. Check out a Washington Post article from last week on this very topic – there might be some good tips there for you.

In your new apartment, the kitchen floor takes up too much darn space. So let’s use a bold, colorful rug to make the living room floor bigger. This should be your primary investment.

Anthropologie’s Arcadian Garden Rug in black would be a wonderful choice. The allover pattern is preferable to stripes or geometric shapes: the pattern de-emphasizes the narrow boxiness of the apartment. Plus the black would be great with the kitchen counters.
Place the rug so that a good 2′ of it overlaps the seam between the wall-to-wall carpeting and the kitchen tile. (The short side of the rug should be parallel to the back window wall.) So the rug is mostly on the carpeting, but by extending past it, it makes the living area appear bigger.

Then, because there isn’t much space for too much else, adorn your sofa to make it the focal point of the apartment. (And a cushy-looking place to lounge.)

Hopefully, your sofa will fit across the double window on the carpeted side of the apartment. (The rug would start in front of – not under – the sofa.) No coffee table; a single small table next to or off-center in front of the sofa would be sufficient. This blog post has a good table suggestion.

To make the sofa seem less massive, put a red throw/blanket across the back middle section of the sofa, but leave edges of the back cushions exposed. Then add a few throw pillows for comfort and visual interest, picking up red, blue and/or purple from the rug.

This Purpley Mod pillow from kthurm (via Etsy) would be fun with the Arcadia rug:


And a red Eco Cushion from Olofs Daughters (also via Etsy) would pick up the red. Avoid florals in the pillows; the rug is enough:


In the dining area, a small ROUND table and 2 chairs from a thrift shop would be perfect. If you don’t have time to comb thrifty-type places, Ikea’s Billsta table has a 27-1/2″ diameter, which should be perfect. Put it with 2 black Gilbert chairs.


Do all of this, Lucy, and you may not even have to paint the walls. If you still want to, though, pick up one of the light greens – or greeny yellow – from the rug. And paint ALL of the walls in the living/dining area. Accent walls will just chop up the space further.

I hope this is helpful, Lucy. Please keep me posted!

Filed Under: Accent wall, Dining room, Pillows, Rugs, Small Spaces, Sofa, Wall-to-wall carpet, You asked...

Hip solution for a small, less than stellar kitchen

June 23, 2009 20 Comments

Quick: you have a cute house with a less than cute kitchen. What do you do?

If you’re a Santa Fe artist and member of Tete de Veau Design Collective, you rip off the cabinet doors and paint the insides green.

Everything else fades away: the focus is on the green. The ordinary stuff on the shelves looks sculptural.

Plus the open shelves add depth to a smallish space. And how’s this for a bonus:
She painted the pipes and undersides of the sinks orange, and then added coordinating plastic bins. It totally enlivens a neglected spot.

Then if you’re REALLY this Santa Fe artist, after admiring your handiwork, you proceed into your living room for a Tete de Veau dress fitting against the backdrop of your own paintings.

Which is even cooler than painting your cabinets green.

Filed Under: Accent wall, Artist, Color, Kitchens, Plumbing, Small Spaces

If Stanley Kubrik opened a frozen yogurt place…

December 15, 2008 6 Comments

…it would probably look like Yogiberry. A friend wanted me to see it because she didn’t care for the interior and wanted my take on it. I hate disappointing my friends, but I thought the space was very clever.


Her complaint is that it’s cold and sterile, that it isn’t a place you’d want to hang out. I disagree, but it’s hard to explain why, since there’s no question that cool tones and non-warm-and-fuzzy materials dominate the space. There’s a lot of white plastic…I was just talking about Saarinen knockoffs, and the white tables and chairs are exactly that.

The longest wall is white and bumpy – it looks like mega-braille, actually. (Oh great. Now I can’t stop thinking about eyes in A Clockwork Orange.)

Another wall – a quasi-accent wall – is mirrored.

You’d expect the pebbled floor to support the whole cold thing. For me, though, the pebbles add some earthiness, and, oddly, they provide a counterpoint to the the 60s-mod space-age sterility.

There is SOME color. When you get your yogurt and sit on the long banquette, you have a full-on view of the stripey wall to your right as you enter the shop. That wall definitely helps warm up the space.


The colors are picked up elsewhere: the hanging light fixtures are in different pastels, for example. They imitate Flos’s Romeo Moon pendants, designed by Philippe Starck (that’s a real one at right).

The Victoria Ghost chairs, also by Philippe Starck, are in different colors, too. I think the chairs are the real deal.

You have to make an effort to notice this, but the window trim and surrounding wall is light yellow, and the ceiling is an extremely light – yes, I’ll call it icy – blue. You know how I feel about white ceilings, so that pretty much sealed the deal for me: I like this place.

Oh yeah – the yogurt’s pretty good, too.

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