3 Wall Finishes
The biggest surfaces in your home are ceilings, floors, and walls, with walls being the most directly aligned with your eye. Let’s look at 3 pleasing ways to finish walls. Each is an opportunity to express what you’re passionate about.
Create Colorful Stripes with Paint
In a bedroom for a young boy, we wanted to create color and interest without investing a lot of money or time, since kids grow up so quickly. The perfect solution: Paint stripes!
Here’s a mock-up of the design. I created an elevation drawing to scale then cut paint strips also to scale, and laid them over the drawing to decide the placement, colors, and sizes of the stripes. The best thing about colored paint: If their son decides he likes orange, green, and purple instead, it’s easy to update.
Design a Custom Wall Mural
When my city clients expressed a love of travel to Guatemala, I wanted to bring their affection for the colors, patterns, and textures found in that country into their San Francisco condo. I found a mural painter to create a custom art wall inspired by Guatemalan culture in their dining room. We also installed a custom wine fridge next to a long counter with beautiful white cabinetry underneath.
Now it’s a luxurious wine tasting area where they can reminisce about their travels and share the tastes of Guatemalan wines with their guests while admiring beautiful art on the main dining wall.
Inspire with Pattern
My client wanted something unique in his San Francisco loft. His metal spiral staircase was the same as every other one I’d seen, with the exception of the curved bookcase, so I brought a special flair by adding a subtle silver geometric pattern to the exterior moveable wall, contrasted with a bright orange on the inside of the bookshelves.
I repeated the orange in a nearby wall niche, providing a sense of harmony and balance. Now he loves going up and down the stairs, admiring how they can be hidden away by a rolling wall with an airy silver finish.
Kimball Starr designs unique wall finishes in homes throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. Contact her today for a remote or socially-distant in-person consultation.
