Let’s talk about walls for a minute. Those 8-9’ structures in your home that divide up your rooms. Walls need love. You don’t just want a bunch of boring painted walls in your house cause then your house will just be like every other boring painted house on the street.
You can paint a wall, you can even wallpaper a wall but by adding a trim detail to the wall it adds an extra element. It’s 3 dimensional and adds pop to the wall and there are easy and complicated ways to dress it up. Even with the simplest of wall trims and details, you can add some class to a once boring white wall. Let’s start with some simple ones for the DIYers. As long as you can use a tape measure and a miter saw you can figure this out.
1. Picture Frame
The first trim style we like to show off is a simple trim that accents the perimeter of the wall. It’s like a picture frame and is offset about 8” from the edge of the wall and adds a nice pop without being too busy. You want to make sure that your spacing is just right and that you keep things in line—It really adds that nice simple pop to the wall.
2. Chair Rail
The next style you can try is more of a chair rail trim. This is most commonly seen in a dining room where you place a nice thick chair rail around the room. The height is very important as a lot of people mess this up. You want the chair rail height to sit around 32-36” from the floor. Similar to the first wall, this is just a single rectangular trim going around the room and will add an extra element to the room. This is a little more difficult but still very much a possibility for the DIYer.
The height is very important. We’ve all been to that restaurant where they’ve clearly put it too high and the chairs have marked up the walls. Believe it or not, the chair rail was designed for chairs. It helps to add that richness to your room. Also, this is something you can do on any wall. It doesn’t have to be a feature wall.
3. Alternating Pattern
These next two are a little more involved and you usually see them on a feature wall. This will look a bit busier but adds a lot to your room. The first one is a more linear option. It’s a square style trim where you use long verticals up and down the wall from the baseboard to the ceiling. Then you can add in short horizontal pieces to go in between and offset them like a brick wall. This will add a lot of definition and pop to your wall.
You can always alternate these too. You can try a brick pattern, you can stack them on top of each other and use any pattern you want. What’s important is to create a consistent pattern and use your imagination. Let there be no limit to what you can do.
We obviously recommend the use of a contractor that can pull off those final details but it’s ultimately up o you and how comfortable you feel tackling a project like this.
Try something behind your headboard. Your bedroom is a great place to make a big statement by also adding a bold colour to the trim. Or you can paint the trim and the wall the same colour so that you can simply add texture to your wall.
Keeping everything the same colour is always a safe bet. The two-tone colour thing is something they used to do in the 70s but you go with whatever you feel looks good.
So, that’s it! Go show your walls some love, people!