An arresting feature for your room

Jagvir Goyal

While giving finishing touches to your house, choosing one wall in each room as the feature wall and giving special treatment to it adds to the beauty of the house. In bedrooms, generally, the wall behind the bed is chosen as the feature wall. In the drawing room, any of the two opposite walls other than the entrance door wall can be chosen as the feature wall. Let’s have a look at the treatment to be given to the feature wall in each room:

The feature wall in each room can be given special paint effects by using texture paints. Another option is to provide waterproof wallpaper of your choice on it. Third option is to provide PVC wall panels on it. Each of the three options can be examined to select one treatment as per the taste and choice of the house builder.

wow with Wallpaper 

Wallpapers add a stylish look to the walls and can be safely chosen for the feature wall in each room. Wallpapers were a popular choice in many parts of the world in the 1960s but were out of fashion for a long time. Now again, these have emerged as a favourite choice and as a luxurious product with new designs and better quality.  3D effect wallpapers are also available now. Choose whether you want a shiny or a matt finish. 

Next, choose from fabric-look, wooden texture or metallic finish. Ensure that the wallpapers chosen are durable, non-fading and washable. Once these are fixed on a wall by an expert craftsman, it becomes impossible to judge whether the wall is covered by using a fabric or wood or stone or bricks. The designs can vary from floral patterns, fabric patterns, stone look, wooden textures, metallic look and veneers.

Look for quality: Most good quality and durable wallpapers are the imported ones, Germany being the main country producing good quality wallpapers. Their being washable is a great advantage. Mostly, wallpapers are vinyl wallpapers or vinyl coated and very sturdy.  

However, one should keep the colour of the carpet and the furniture in mind while selecting the wallpaper. Try scratching a wallpaper hard and see that there are no marks. Carefully check that the pattern is uniform and there are no printing errors or waviness in design.Only skilled workers of the supplier should be hired to paste the wallpaper on the walls. 

The cost of wallpapers varies from as little as Rs 20 per sq. ft. to as high as Rs 900 per sq.ft. Mostly, wallpapers are supplied in rolls with a standard width of 53 cm which gives 50 cm finished width. Length of wallpaper in each roll is plus 10 metres. One such roll gives approximately 5 sq. m finished area. Good quality and attractive-looking wallpaper can be got for an all-inclusive cost of Rs 50 to Rs 55 per sq.ft. 

PVC perfection

PVC wall panels are another option for  feature walls. Attractive designs, ease of use and cost competitiveness are a few factors that every house builder looks for while selecting a material for the feature walls and PVC panels meet all these requirements. Variable surface designs can be created by providing PVC foam board or particle board behind these and provision of cove lighting can also be done on the wall by hiding the light strips behind the PVC panel projections. That’s why PVC wall panels are becoming popular these days. 

Some aspects of PVC panels: PVC wall panels are also manufactured from Poly Vinyl Chloride. For this purpose, 100 per cent virgin interior grade poly vinyl chloride resin granules are chosen, which are checked for their density, hardness, tensile strength, elongation and colour before converting them into wall panels. The material is particularly checked to be odour free as smelly material is doubted to be of inferior quality and not eco-friendly. ROHS certified material should be preferred. 

Advantages: On technical grounds, their being damp proof, termite proof and fire resistant matters. Their durability and no maintenance qualities attract buyers. It is better to avoid the use of PVC panels on a wall in which water supply or drainage pipes are embedded.

PVC wall panels are available in thickness ranging from 5 mm to 10 mm. Most companies produce 6 mm-thick panels. When the panels have alternate troughs and crests, the thickness varies 8 to 10 mm at crests and 5 to 7 mm at troughs.

Cost factor: PVC wall panels are supplied in widths of 250 mm or 10 inch and 300 mm or 12 inch and are sold at per running foot rate. The price varies from Rs 15 to Rs 30 per running foot of panel. While the basic material is the same, the price variation depends on the design, colour and thickness of the panels. It is better to assign the complete supply as well as fixing at site job to the supplier. 

— The writer is former HoD and engineer-in-chief, Civil Engineering 

Department in a Punjab PSU

Playing with Textures

The third option available to treat feature walls is to provide special effect texture paint designs on them. These special effect paints are applied by using special effect tools like sponge, ragging roller, comb, special effect brush and spatula. Mostly, a dark colour is chosen as the base and design is created over it. A three- dimensional effect can be created by using these paints. Semi-gloss colours look beautiful and classic while glossy finish looks inferior and shoddy and matt finish looks dull. Right use of these paints can make the feature wall look like a curtain or painting or sky or fabric or mural and so on. 

Choose correctly: A base coat and a top coat combination is suggested by the paint manufacturers and different types of tools help in producing the desired effect. One should examine various palettes produced by different tools to choose the one to one’s liking. Wood effect can be best produced by the use of brush. The effects produced by spatula and comb are progressive and modern. 

Most people choose rag or sponge effects to create a uniform pattern all over the wall. Metallic effects can be given to the wall by using gold, silver or copper shades or a combination of these. Sponge and spatula when used for metallic shades produce rich, semi-gloss effects that really make the walls look metallic.