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Dear Fiona,
I know - I know - that everybody hates feature walls; but are they really so awful? Is there a way that they can be done well? Might they come back in fashion, the way that everything inevitably does? I ask because I’ve fallen in love with some really expensive wallpaper (and I mean, really expensive) – and I can therefore only possibly afford to wallpaper one wall (or justify wallpapering one wall) and even that’s going to take some saving up. Please tell me that there’s a way to make it work! Because I really do love it so much and I think living with it is going to make me really happy.
Love
Vintage Champagne Taste on a Prosecco Budget
Dear Prosecco Budget,
Thank you for your letter – at the heart of which is an issue with which I reckon every reader will be able to identify. We’ve all longed for things we can’t afford – or can’t justify spending money on. For me, that’s rather a lot of art, as well as, like you, a wallpaper. I wanted to use it in my bedroom, and haven’t, because the estimated bill was approaching five figures, and I’ve got tween children who are into ponies and a sub-optimal pension balance. However, unlike you, it hadn’t even crossed my mind to try to make it work by only papering one wall – which is mainly because I’m not particularly keen on that look.
I’m not alone; feature walls – aka ‘accent walls’ - have consistently topped every single ‘most hated interior design feature’ survey conducted in the last decade, and while some interior designers are diplomatic in their dislike, “I think they’re typically best avoided” says Tiffany Duggan of Studio Duggan, others are straight up about their feelings. “Eurgh,” says Tamsin Saunders of Home & Found, shuddering at the idea of “turquoise metallic wallpaper or exposed brick work walls” that were symptomatic of the 1990s and early 2000s Changing Rooms era. Then, promoted as a simple means of adding a risk-free and low-maintenance area of interest, they spread, rash-like, through homes up and down the country, and “they were the last word in naff,” describes Bridie Hall. They even appeared on Sex and the City, remember Big’s attempt at a fire engine-red feature wall? Season 3, episode 18, I believe.
But it wasn’t the first time they were tried, and what is notable is that even in the hands of someone who is unequivocally brilliant, they’re a challenge. When he was a teenager, the great Nicky Haslam’s mother allowed him to decorate a downstairs sitting room in the house on Cumberland Terrace that they were then living in. “I’m ashamed to say I elected to paper one wall only with a strident modern design,” he recounts in his biography, Redeeming Features. “My brother Michael was so distressed by the scheme that he could hardly be induced to come across from his own flat at the back of the house.” In other words, there is ample evidence that feature walls are a truly terrible idea, which is almost undoubtedly why they haven’t – yet – come back into fashion. As to whether they ever will? Well, that’s up for debate, but what I can say is that yours is not the only letter that I’ve received on the subject.
One of the reasons so many people wonder about them – and the possibility of their revival - is that if only they could work, they would, as you’ve identified, be a convenient equivalent of getting a couple of cushions made up in a fabric that it too eye-watering to be used for curtains. It would also be a handy means of using a paper or colour that you worry might be too much if you do a whole room in it.
And so, despite the many well-chronicled failures, I’m going to moot – slightly hesitantly, and definitely controversially – that it actually is possible to successfully incorporate a feature wall into your home, if by a feature wall we mean a single wall given individual treatment. Proof comes by way of Susan Deliss – and indeed Bridie, Tamsin and Tiffany, who, despite not having been remotely enthusiastic about the concept thus far, have all either got one themselves, or they’ve incorporated one into a scheme – though they’re not necessarily immediately identifiable, which is why they are so appealing (and they really are!) Vital to understand is that there are certain conditions – which is what I believe your letter was hoping for.
So, rule one: avoid overt contrast – and know that even Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen, who as host of Changing Rooms once led the trend’s charge, recently declared “with all this feature wall stuff, if you’ve got colour and pattern on one wall, you have to have colour and balance in the rest of the room.” Bridie’s feature wall above, for instance, is a map of London, and palette-wise it peacefully co-exists with the rest of her dining room. Do notice how it doesn’t quite reach the edges of the wall, and thus feels a little like a cross between a large artwork and a mural. Tiffany’s approach is not entirely dissimilar: “for a recent project we commissioned artist Eugenia Barrios to paint the walls of a garden-adjacent dining room in a lime-wash effect, adding wildflowers to the wall behind the banquette. It is, I suppose, a feature wall – but the limewash effect covered all the walls, so the room was cohesive, which is why it works so well.”
In Tiffany’s approach is point two: a feature wall works best as backdrop (in her instance, that’s to the banquette) rather than as a standalone feature, we’re definitely not looking at the ‘accent wall’ of yore. Rather, it needs to be “a layer amid other layers of richness of decoration,” describes Susan Deliss. Her example is on her landing, and she has used wallpaper - Fornasetti’s Mediterranea – and combined it with “an 18th century French Régence marble table and a 16th century hand-carved gilt mirror. “The wallpaper can’t be the end point,” she emphasises.
And there, courtesy of Susan, we have rule three: do not pick a random wall – but know that, well-employed, a feature wall can lend itself to useful demarcation. Tamsin has achieved great effect via this method in a mews house in South Kensington, where she turned a narrow space between the sitting area and kitchen into a dining area “by commandeering the ‘dead’ wall between the two spaces. I built a long bench seat and bookshelves along it,” she explains – and those are painted a different colour to the rest of the room (though, to return to rule one, there is no jarring juxtaposition.)
So there you have it: how to make it work via four examples, and three rules – though I still might suggest proceeding with caution. I’d also like to point out that there are other ways of incorporating a bold colour or some wallpaper, when you either don’t want or can’t afford to go the whole hog. Tiffany reminds us of the fifth wall, i.e. the ceiling, “which is an excellent opportunity for a striking colour choice, a gloss finish, or a wallpaper in a small space.” Then, woodwork works well for a lesser commitment in terms of a colour, cupboard doors or the insides of shelves can be made rather beautiful by papering them, finally, if the design lends itself to it – and a Chinoiserie, for instance, does – you could frame panels of the paper. I’ve satisfied my longing, incidentally, by using a sample of the wallpaper I wanted to use to bind a notebook – and I’m also planning to hand paint elements from the paper onto my bedroom walls. (I’m just waiting for Tess Newall’s Create Academy course to give me some helpful pointers.)
But it may be that you get to here and think that you still want a feature wall, and maybe it’s not going to be a backdrop, and it’s not going to blend in, but you are confident that it’s going to make you happy anyway – in which I say go for it. You’re not doing something that can’t be undone, there’s no progress unless rules are challenged, and “the best interiors demonstrate a fearless enthusiasm for design and a willingness to experiment throughout,” says Tamsin. What’s more, it’s your home – and it’s bringing you joy should be prioritised over the opinions of others. I should also confess that, despite what I said in the opening paragraph, I have got a feature wall, in that my dining room wallpaper runs onto one (and only one) of the kitchen walls. It’s essentially an accidental feature wall, but either way, I love it.
I hope that this has helped – both you and the others who have written on this subject. For to conclude – yes, feature walls can be awful, but they can also be a triumph. As with so many things in interior design, it’s about execution and personal taste.
With love
Fiona XX
