What will your walls wear this fall?

A fresh coat of paint is one of the easiest ways to create a striking effect

Art is a great way to add personality to your space and tell visitors a bit about your interests, favourite colours and style. It’s also an excellent way to decorate a room with an investment you can take with you if you ever move.

Fall is a great time to show your walls some stylish love. I’ve rounded up some ways to easily bring personality and panache to your world with a little game I like to call paint, paper, art. Which will win out as a way to make your walls stand out instead of close in on you?

PAINT THE TOWN

A fresh coat of paint is one of the easiest — and fastest — ways to create a striking effect. Every autumn, major paint manufacturers announce their colours of the year for the coming year, so it’s a great time to usher in a change in your decor that’s right on trend.

Neutral colours have long dominated walls and, lately, they’ve been turning into darker, more dramatic neutral tones. That means one thing — change is on the horizon. Up next: walls with brighter and more dramatic colour.

For me, the most exciting fall announcement comes from Canadian paint company Beautitone. Their Warm Hugs (D43-0-1598), a rich pink with orange and red hues, brings back a time in decorating when people painted with their favourite colours and treated them like common neutrals — I call that no-fear decorating.

The last time we saw that approach was the 1990s. I think Beautitone’s Warm Hugs would be striking, whether used throughout an entire small space or to punctuate a dining room, library or family room. Often, we fear decorating with pink, thinking it will make a room look too feminine. But this rich pink-red, accessorized with walnut wood and colours from nature like greens, blues and browns, will give a room a classic look with updated appeal — as though the decorator has just been around and worked their magic.

Tip: Paint the room’s crown moulding, walls, window/door trims and baseboards in the same colour to give a modern, less busy look to a room. Would you dare consider a strong pink-red to be your new neutral for 2022? I’m seriously considering it for a powder room or entrance foyer.

PAPER TALES

The look of textured walls is building in popularity and my prediction is Venetian plaster walls will be all the rage within the next year.

Venetian plaster is a wall finish made of plaster and marble dust applied with a trowel in thin layers. The layers are then burnished to create a smooth, layered look with bits of subtle shine.

Authentic Venetian plaster is laborious and costly to install, so wallpaper will be my solution for getting this look. With today’s photo technology, wallpapers can mimic very fine finishes and are much easier to apply (and remove) than the real plaster finishes.

Use a Venetian plaster look on a wall that you would otherwise highlight with a dark paint colour or a heavy wallpaper, such as seagrass. It would also be equally great applied to one wall as a focal point or on all four walls to envelop a room and create an intimate feeling.

ART SMARTS

Art is a great way to add personality to your space and tell visitors a bit about your interests, favourite colours and style. It’s also an excellent way to decorate a room with an investment you can take with you if you ever move.

So how do you start collecting? Set a theme that appeals to you — wildlife, landscapes, people, abstracts, colourful or black and white are just a few popular choices. Trust your instincts. As you continue to buy favourite pieces, you will see what style of art you gravitate to.

Collect and buy what your budget allows, and you’ll be surprised how your collection grows over time. The first piece of art I ever purchased was a painting of a dog more than 20 years ago, and, without being conscious of it, I have continued to collect many art pieces (mostly thrift shop and tag sale finds) of animals.

And don’t be afraid to reframe your collection — not all in the same frame. Instead, opt for frames with similar finishes, which will help unite varied art pieces.

A popular spot for displaying a full wall of art is around main focal points, such as a fireplace, television, headboard or china cabinet. Keep the largest art pieces at eye level and surround them with the next biggest in size, with smallest on the outer edges. Another great spot to display art is on a stairwell wall. This way you get to enjoy the wall of art from a few levels in your house.

Don’t have quite enough art to fill a wall? Trying hanging a few above a mantel or console table, then prop some on the actual mantel or table, leaning them against the wall and slightly overlapping some pieces. This will give a casual look to your art display and allow you to move works around as your art collection grows over time.