Types of Wall Coverings
A wide range of wall covering products exist and a common practice involves combinations of different wall coverings. For example, a householder may choose to wallpaper three walls of a living room but use paneling for the fourth wall or may choose to wallpaper most rooms but use painted walls for a young child's room because of the durability and ease of repair. Does this Spark an idea?
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Paint/Staining
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Because painted or stained walls provide a level of acceptability for most potential residents and because painted or stained walls allow for the least costly options in terms of damage repair, apartment landlords and condo property managers may opt for the use of painted walls. Incoming residents can also easily change painted or stained walls to a different color of paint more to their preference, to another type of wall covering such as tiling, for example, or to a combination of paint and other types of wall coverings.
Paneling
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A variety of different types of wall paneling provide much flexibility in wall covering decor. A householder may choose paneling made of fabric. Other options use laminate materials that give the appearance of wood or stone. Wainscoting provides a variation on paneling. This form of paneling covers only a lower portion of the wall, ending below a segment known as the chair rail. Wainscoting traditionally is constructed from tongue-in-groove board paneling or beadboard paneling.
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Stenciling
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Another type of wall covering that found use in older homes involves stenciling. In traditional stenciling, an artist would use a template of a design or a group of designs centered on a particular theme such as local flora. The artist would then cover the wall with painted or etched, uniform reproductions of the motif or motifs. With the help of more modern, commercially-produced stencil templates, the use of stencils as a wall covering option has realized some more recent popularity.
Back Splashes
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Back splash wall coverings often find use in kitchens and sometimes in other rooms of a "service" nature in a home such as a butler's pantry or a bathroom. In some senses the reverse of wainscoting paneling, the back splash involves a partial wall above a location, such as a countertop, between an upper and lower fixture, like a bathroom sink and medicine cabinet or between a countertop and storage cabinet, as in a butler's pantry. Typical wall coverings for back splash areas include tiles of slate, glass or metal. Another decor possibility for a tiled back splash involves personalizing the back splash with adhesive appliques of motifs, sold in some home decor mail order catalogs. Formica sheets provide another option for back splashes. such sheets can get installed as a single unit along a wall rather than the separate pieces fitted together as with tiling.
Tapestries
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A traditional wall covering, rarely used in modern homes, involves the use of a tapestry. A tapestry provides a room-sized, fabric-based decorative wall covering. The tapestry could depict a scene or group of scenes, such as a Biblically-based group of pictorial panels or a fox hunt scene. The decorative value of a tapestry could involve a motif such as an intricate weave or a geometric pattern.
Wallpaper
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Wallpaper comes in many different varieties. The different types of wallpaper include solid wallpaper, vinyl-coated wallpaper, paperback-vinyl wallpaper, fabric-backed wallpaper, specialty wallpaper products and hand-printed wallpaper products.
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References
- Stencils for Walls: Stenciling, The Basics
- Interior Wall Paneling
- Truly Lovely Home: Kitchen Back Splash Ideas -- Back Splash design ideas that give your kitchen a distinctive look
- European-Wall-Tapestries: Tapestry Standard
- WordIQ: Wainscoting -- Definition
- Home-Decorating-Room-by-Room: Wallcoverings add dramatic impact and elements of design to a room
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
