But what if you’re interested in wall covering ideas besides the obvious? Read further for some inventive ways to cover a wall. But a word of advice: the more unusual and complex the wall covering, the more restraint you need when using them. Some are so highly textured and detailed that covering your entire house with them (or even an entire room) will produce visual overload. So, for some of these coverings, consider installing them on a single accent wall rather than all four walls. With a little creativity and a good design concept, you can cover walls with just about any material you can think of. Wainscotting is often made from wood beadboard painted white, but it can be made from many different materials, such as stained and finished hardwood paneling or a section of complementary wallpaper. Sometimes the effect is achieved simply by separating sections of the wall with a chair rail molding and using a different paint color on the bottom section. Luckily, traditional beadboard wainscoting is readily available and inexpensive. It’s as close as your local lumberyard or home improvement store. Wainscot can be found in two main forms:
Tongue-and-groove plywood beadboard paneling in 4 x 8-foot sizes requiring cutting and primingMDF panels 32 to 48 inches high made just for wainscot; these panels have tongue-and-groove texturing and are primed for paint
Big box home improvement centers offer a limited selection of tiles at good prices, but for a better selection and better design advice, visit a local specialty tile store. The advisors at tile stores may be able to help you with the perfect tile selection for wainscoting. But using tile this way requires some careful planning and restraint. A tile with bright colors and pronounced patterns can create too much visual interest and might be best suited for a single accent wall to avoid overwhelming a room. The hard surfaces can also make a room echo with sound—another reason to limit their use to a single wall in the room. Plenty of homeowners have discovered that metal ceiling tiles make great wall coverings. Whether real metal or faux metal—high-quality polystyrene foam that looks convincingly like metal— these tiles can be easily applied to a wall with mastic adhesive. The most cost-effective panels are faux, not real, leather. Where physical contact is likely, such as behind a sofa or chair, choose real leather. But where all you need is the look of leather, faux panels look smashing. These panels are easy to install, too—they adhere right onto the wall with hot glue or construction adhesive. Manufactured stone has been used for exterior veneers for many years, but clever homeowners and designers are also using it for interior walls in large spaces where the impact is best felt. The three major veneer stone manufacturers are El Dorado, Cultured Stone, and Coronado Stone.
This is a covering that works best in bone-dry areas. In other words, keep it away from the outdoors, and avoid installing it in bathrooms, even if it’s not adjacent to the shower or tub. Be forewarned that cork mosaics make for an expensive wall. At almost $19 per square foot, an 8 x 10-foot wall will cost slightly over $1500 to cover. This means that for most people cork tiles will be best suited for wall sections or for backsplashes. The maker of CorkDotz Modwalls says that this material is water-resistant if properly sealed. This product is a green environmentally-correct choice since the tiles are made from recycled cork bottle stoppers. For walls that no one is likely to forget, consider stainless steel HPL sheets. They are composed of a thin layer of steel atop the laminate surface, so installation doesn’t require metalworking skills. Shown is NuMetal, from Advanced Technology, Inc., of Greensboro, North Carolina. ATI will ship up to five free samples from four of its design-related product lines. Removable wallpapers aren’t cheap, though. In this example, the 8-foot high x 15-foot wide accent wall costs upwards of $375.
