I grew up with a mother that loved Accent Walls. When I say “Accent Wall”, I am referring to a room where only one wall is painted a color- and the other walls are left white. I’m not sure if it was the trendy thing to do back then, (in my defense, it wasn’t all that long ago!), or if she was just afraid of using color in a more liberal fashion. Usually the wall to be painted was the wall with a focal point- the fireplace wall or the wall with the bed. She was always concerned with making our home lovely, which I give her credit for, but I grew to detest Accent Walls!

Now that I’m a practicing interior designer, I find that people still have accent walls! Once I get to the root of the preference, I find its usually due to fear of color and what color might do to a room. The biggest fret is that four walls of color will cause a room to be “dark” or “make the room look smaller”.

Accent walls have grown on me.  I started to notice good ones in restaurants and retail designs, and I figured out how to apply what I saw to a residential interior. The number one tip for a “good” accent wall in your home is this: 

No matter the space, accent walls are best achieved where all the walls are painted a light or medium neutral color and the accent wall is painted a darker color that relates to the neutral or a bold color that contrasts with the neutral. Don’t leave the other walls white!

To fully execute a good accent wall, a few other considerations come into play:

1) You have to be sure that every other element in your room coordinates (but isn’t “matchy-matchy”!) and carries out the accent colors hue and value. If there is no thought of coordination and balance of color throughout the room, your accent wall will look like floating, unrelated color. Think about coordinating pillows, rug, upholstery fabric and drapery.

2) Think about putting a flower arrangement in your accent color somewhere else in the room. I like the spriggy florals that are out right now- lots of little blooms on long stems that arc softly downward. Stay away from expected arrangements that can look dated. If you are using a neutral or earthy color, do a stick or grass arrangement. Flowers and natural grasses are a great way to mix that accent color around.
Accent colors are great to experiement with. You can switch the color out when you get sick of it, you can play with popular color trends, and best of all- you will be more adventurous with color when you don’t have to be so committed to it!