6 Ways to Revamp a Bare and Dull Wall

A collage of photos showcasing vibrant and diverse wall art.

You may not be able to afford a Van Gogh or a Monet, but that’s no reason to put up with a boring wall. As long as you live in your house, you will spend many hours of your life staring at the same wall, so you may as well make it interesting to stare at. You don’t need a degree in interior design for that.

There’s a lot you can do transform a plain, boring wall into something extraordinary, even with a meager budget. With that said, here are six ways to turn your wall from bare and dull to attractive and interesting.

Go for Retro

Retro may be based on the things of the old, but it never really gets old. It has an elegance that transcends time. With a tasteful application, it can evoke a sense of nostalgia of the best things from the past.

For a retro-inspired design, you can use vintage pieces, like a ’50s-style round clock, neon signs, vintage signs, and wall decals. One of the most popular retro wall decorations is hanging a gallery of vintage pieces over a long, usually bright couch.

A dull living room with many different signs on the wall.
Vintage Metallic Signs Wall Decal

If you don’t have the patience to build a retro gallery, you can also use removable wall decals of old product posters, magazine covers, and vintage patterns to create your own retro wall.

Create an Art Gallery

There’s nothing like art to add attraction to a plain, boring wall. The colors, lines, and elements of an artwork all mesh to create meaning that the viewer tries to discern. Art is not just for decoration, but also for engaging.

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A dull living room with pictures on the wall.
Gallery on the wall

The first step to create a wall art gallery is to find the perfect spot. This is the sort of decoration that has the maximum impact when it’s the centerpiece in a room. Next, make sure to choose artworks that are cohesive yet different from one another.

The frames you use is part of the decor, so you can’t just randomly choose anything. Frames with common elements should be used. If you’re not sure what that means, play it safe with plain black or white frames.

The artworks that you use should also have cohesion with rest of your interior decoration. Whether it’s the color or the theme, the important thing is to achieve a balance of harmony and contrast.

It would a waste to just hang random art on your wall, so use art that you actually love. That will make the decoration so much better. 

Make a Family Gallery Wall

Instead of using scenic photos or paintings, why not create a photo gallery of your family pictures to spruce up your wall? It’s much more personal and meaningful than just putting up beautiful yet random art on the wall.

A dull wall showcasing black and white photos in frames.
Black & White family wall

You can cover one whole wall with picture after picture of your family members and your best moments together. The family gallery wall is not just for beautifying a boring wall; it’s also a way to catalog your journey together as a family.

Aside from framed photos, you can also throw in a personalized family wall calendar to keep track of the all the important occasions in your lives. You can hang it together with your family pictures as a functional decoration.

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Install Elegant Sconces

Sometimes, it’s the quality, not the quantity, that makes the decoration stand out. You don’t have to use a lot of eye-catching pieces or loud colors and patterns to make your boring wall exciting. A few elegant pieces are all you need.

Two sconces on a dull wall next to a window.
Ideas To Install Awesome Kirklands Sconces

Before sconces were used for the primary purpose of lighting, but now they’re more decorative than functional. They don’t give off enough light to see clearly, but they help build the ambience in the room. Installing a couple of tasteful brass sconces on a plain wall can transform it into a minimalistic, elegant space. It has the same effect as that of adding a chandelier in a room.

Have Fun with Patterns

 If you want to create a fun, modern space, then patterns are the way to go. Patterns add depth to your space. You can also add colors to make your wall more attractive and exciting.

There are lots of patterns you use to capture the kind of theme that you want. For example, geometric patterns make the space look more clean and contemporary. On the other hand, curvy and wavy patterns give off a more abstract and relaxing feeling, especially when you use muted colors.

A kitchen with dull triangles on the wall.
Modern Kitchen Designs with Geometric Wallpapers

Use  paint, stencils, or wallpapers to create the patterns you want, and inject some cheer into your boring wall. Here are 30 modern wall designs to get you inspired.

Impress with a Majestic Mural

Take advantage of your artistic talents (or artistic friends) to transform your wall from dull to interesting. Paint a mural on your wall, and turn it into one big masterpiece. You can paint anything, from simple patterns to majestic sceneries.

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An image of a tiger on a dull wall in a restaurant.

With a mural, you no longer have to use other decorative pieces to spice up your. It’s already completely transformed.

There are four different sheens for interior household paint: flat, eggshell, satin, and semigloss. An eggshell sheen is ideal for painting a mural. It has more luster than flat paint has and has less shine than semigloss has. It’s also easier to clean and doesn’t make wall imperfections as obvious.

Learn the basics of creating a mural through this quick, informative guide.

Final Word

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to make your boring walls interesting and exciting. You don’t even have to be specially creative or gifted in the arts to do that. Create a vintage vibe with retro decorations, or go for a modern look with geometric patterns.

Personalize with a family wall gallery or get creative with an art-gallery wall or painted mural. Go for a classy, minimalistic look with elegant fixtures. With a few decorating tricks and design inspirations, you can spruce up your bare and dull walls.

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