By Rosemary Sadez Friedmann
Scripps Howard News Service What can your walls do other than just hold up the ceiling? For one thing, they can help control sound. Wood paneling on the wall helps absorb and muffle sound. Cork is another excellent sound-absorbing wall covering.
And try putting fabric on the wall, either shirred loosely and attached at the ceiling and floor levels, or padded underneath for a textured upholstered look. You might want to finish the look with a welt at the ceiling and baseboard level.
Some wallpapers also have acoustical qualities, but you're most likely to find these in the commercial wallpaper books rather than the standard residential ones. Ask your designer for help.
With the open floor plan that so many homes have now, defining space might be visually appealing. Wall treatments can come to your aid there, too.
You might try coordinating but different wallpapers for space definition, or you might paint one area one color and the adjoining space a brighter or deeper shade of the same color. The paint-color idea comes in handy when there is no breaking point in the wall, taking from you the option of having an architectural barrier with which to end one wallpaper gracefully and begin another. With paint, and this will take a professional, you can shade one color into the other resulting in a very nice effect.
What if your home is not an open plan, but you want a sense of continuity throughout? Just remember that walls of the same color draw the eye into adjacent areas and give the impression of openness.
Let's use an example. Say you're standing in the foyer and the eye can see the living room, dining room, hallway and foyer. Your best bet is to paint all these rooms the same color. If wallpaper is used, the same rule of thumb holds true.
Though each room has its own purpose, and its own accents, a continuous color scheme should be used throughout. The colors may change from room to room so long as they coordinate and complement each other and are repeated in the fabrics in the other rooms.
What about blah walls? Accent paint to the rescue again. The color can be bold or soft; either way you will make that wall more lovable. Also, attractive wallpaper can do the same trick. You might consider adding wood trim on the wall in interesting patterns such as squares like a picture frame, or just the four corners of a frame with an actual picture set inside.
Another idea is to make that blah wall a stucco wall for texture interest. You can also make that wall the family picture wall.
(Rosemary Sadez Friedmann, a member of the American Society of Interior Designers is president of Rosemary Sadez Friedmann Inc. in Naples, Fla.)
