The power of a single wall
Take an accent area to the next level with a funky, individualized treatment
Paint’s nice; so is wallpaper. But what if you want to create a room to remember — one that has that little something extra that stands out from all the nice but forgettable rooms your neighbours have? Enter the focal wall. We consulted three experts for their bright ideas on making walls stand out.
The perfect foil
Sue Bailie, Art Walls (artwalls.ca)
Artist Sue Bailie spends a lot of time creating multimedia works of art using unique foiling techniques. But she also takes those techniques to much bigger canvasses through her business — Art Walls. The walls are covered with foil that has a tinted Mylar glue backing and is ultimately glazed and lacquered.
“When you pull the Mylar off, the foil stays,” Bailie says.
Her home is her studio and showroom, where would-be clients can see her work in various forms. The living room boasts a shiny feature wall in a colour she calls raspberry beret. Her bedroom, meanwhile, has a stunning silver ceiling, a project she admits was a real challenge, but the results speak for themselves. She also uses the technique to do more subtle treatments such as the Venetian plaster look she gave two walls in her kitchen.
“It ends up looking like marble,” she says. “It’s an Old-World feel. I like super-modern, but I also like classic. I like the combination of the two. It isn’t chunky, though it looks it.”
The backsplash is a coppery tone that she chose to match the faint hint of pink in the wood cupboards.
Around the corner, a feature wall in her dining room is a riot of pinks and greys — not for everyone, granted, but certainly a conversation starter.
“You can tone it down with whatever colour glaze you want,” Bailie says, pointing at the kitchen wall. “Then you lacquer it and it’s there forever. It’s a visual texture.”
She can also use her technique to make shapes and patterns on walls.
Her bathroom, for example, has a cherry-tree motif over the toilet and sink, while her hallway is silver with a glaze that gives it a hammered feel.
“It’s subtle and classic in the sense that it’s not something you’ll get bored of,” Bailie says.
For a client in Stittsville, she created a “man cave” for a divorced man who has retired from the military. “He has pewter foil columns and a pewter foil cove. It’s pretty spectacular.”
The self-taught artist — she sells work through the Ottawa Art Gallery and at events — divides her time between doing feature walls in homes and using the same techniques to produce paintings.
“It’s something different. It’s cool to have an art wall in a home,” she says, while acknowledging that it’s a niche market that tends to grow by word of mouth.
“I have no formal training. I took art classes as a kid. Sometimes I think formal training can slow you down. There are a lot of rules.” Her philosophy? “It’s just art, man. Let’s not take it too seriously. Why can’t it just be pretty and fun?”
Prices vary depending on the work to be done, usually come in at $800 to $1,500 for a basic wall, which would take about three days to complete due to drying times. And if you want to remove it down the road? If it’s not textured, it’s as simple as priming the wall with a conversion primer before painting. If there is texture, count on the added step of a skim coat.
Stencil it up
Lisa Goulet, Lisa Goulet Design (Lisagouletdesign.com)
Interior decorator Lisa Goulet finds her clients usually lean toward neutral rooms, but she likes to introduce a little pop of pattern. Enter painted stencils.
“The stencilling came about because people are scared of wallpaper,” Goulet says. “People feel wallpaper is a lot of work to put up — and to take down if they don’t like it. Stencilling is easy to paint over so it’s not as much commitment.”
It’s also totally customizable in the sense that you can get the exact colour you want. While custom wallpaper exists, she notes that it’s more expensive. Then there’s the appeal of the do-it-yourself aspect.
“It’s a great project for anyone who has a level and some patience,” she says. “The work is in the prep. You have to figure out how you want it to look and you have to be careful if you’re going around corners.”
Creating one feature wall cuts out the corner problem and she suggests using a foam roller instead of a stencil brush because the roller gives it a hand-done, imperfect look, which is more forgiving.
Just like wallpaper, stencils are making a comeback, but they’re not the “fruit bowl” type of the 1980s. Instead, patterns are more modern, graphic-looking and very large-scale. You can customize it using toneon-tone or multiple colours, Goulet says.
She did her front entryway and says everyone who walks through her front door comments on it.
“It’s the impact of the big pattern on the wall,” Goulet says. “People are more willing to do one wall instead of the whole room. Some wallpapers get very pricey; stencilling can be costeffective.”
For the real DIYer, she says, stencils can be made using Mylar sheets with X-Acto knives.
Get creative Ana Gomes, Personal Touch Interiors (Personaltouchinteriors.com)
Ana Gomes believes that anything you’re passionate about can be transferred to a wall and, at the same time, made into a piece of art. For her own bedroom, she had found a custom wallpaper she really liked, but it was expensive and would need to be ordered from the U.K.
“It would have been quite original, but I figured why not take it a step further and have it custom-made for me?” she says. “I wanted to do a focal wall behind my bed.”
And focal walls don’t have to be confined to the four we think of most often. Why not do a ceiling? Gomes did one with horizontal stripes as a way to visually expand a bedroom that was only 7-1/2 feet wide.
“A striped wall is nice and I’ve done it but it’s something more common than the ceiling.”