![](http://offbeathome.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/big-tall-wall-550x282.jpg)
The husband and I just bought a big house in semi-suburbs. It’s pretty bland right now (beige walls + beige tile floors = snooze) and while we’ve got plenty of ideas for making it the colorful, funky home that we want, I’m at a loss for what to do with the immense two story walls in the living room.We’ll definitely paint them, but then what? I feel like they are calling out for something special. Anyone have any awesome decorating ideas for very tall walls? – Jessica
Homies, Jessica needs you to weigh in here: what should she do with these extremely tall walls? What have YOU done with your massively high walls?
I would paint some fake arches… pretend like it’s a grand cathedral type space!
ALSO: check out this cool geometric design for the top of this super tall wall: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cGPTiVaGqd0/TwFRwVHj6bI/AAAAAAAAAo0/KO1YGzuGbBE/s1600/FoyerWalls.jpg
That image came from this blog post- http://southgateresidential.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-to-do-with-high-walls.html
Here is the image of that foyer after that geometric pattern was painted in- http://southgateresidential.blogspot.com/2012/01/few-projects-at-my-own-house.html
That was my first thought too – get some molding (they also have fake molding in styrofoam that’s pretty cheap – you can just caulk it to the wall) and go crazy. 😉
You can also use it to play with colors without having to be so careful about the edges between colors (just cover the overlap with the molding).
My vote is find a piece of huge art (or make one/enlist an artistic friend) for the wall. Or a collage of similarly themed smaller paintings/wall sculptures.
What she said!
This is the exact same floor plan as our new house (except we have beige carpet everywhere instead of tile), so we bought this monstrosity from Ikea for the left wall right inside the front door: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00176853/
It’s about 6.5 feet long and 5 feet tall, so it’s good wall cover if you don’t feel like painting just yet. (We just moved in a few weeks ago, so painting this cathedral might not happen for a few months… it just seems so daunting!)
Quilts, tapestries and printed sarongs are big and can be used as decorative wall hangings.
As an added bonus, they are soft and wont injure you if they fall on you, so you can safely hang them in places like over your bed (Why yes. I do live in earthquake country. Why do you ask?)
Some awesome wall hangings could be cool – get long stretches of fabric that you like, hem them or wrap them around a light frame (depending on how heavy/light they are) and hang.
I’ve seen that done with pretty table runners, hung on a hanger like you use for presentation hanging of obis or tapestries. (a dowel-thingy, basically)
The fabric doesn’t even have to be that dramatic, just having that big sweep of color makes a big statement.
OOH TABLE RUNNERS!
Like this…. http://offbeatbride.com/2012/08/banner-placemats ?
To get a bit more drama you could add uplighters, really show off the colours.
Especially if you have any inherited, family heirloom type linens.
My gym has super-tall walls. What they did was choose a nice color (they picked a sagey green) and painted it satin about 9 feet up and the rest in flat of the same color. It really brings the walls down and I hardly ever think about how tall it really is in there. They also chose some nice, big 8-foot paintings and framed mirrors that define the space.
You know..I could see a great opportunity to do some hippy-funk deco by hanging fabrics or even a an assortment of scarves. I’ve always thought it’d be great to get old drapes and do the same. You never know!
I say hang something you wouldn’t normally hang on a wall due to its size like a bicycle, or something like old windows with art or mirror behind the panes? Or do a gallery style wall with tons of pictures and art, or art out of art like some crazy photomosaic.
I love the idea of hanging something huge that you wouldn’t normally find on a wall.
One of my favorite tall ceiling/wall art pieces was in my cousins house. Someone made her a 1000 origami crane hanging mobile thing for her wedding and she hung it in her super vaulted entry way. Hers was a spiral but you could just as easily make one that hung more tapestry like. If you have that kind of time on your hands 🙂
Oooooh!
We did this for our Handfasting too! We used strings of them hanging from the trees and columns as decorations. After everyone took a strand home as a favor we had a handful left. I strung them on a spring tension rod and centered them on a wall between picture groups of our handfasting. Something else I will do if I ever had the space is have my veil mounted. It’s a circular veil with a diameter of over 6 feet!
Ooh, you could always get one of those really cool wall sticker-sort of things, one of the trees?
Offbeat Home did an article here:
http://offbeathome.com/2012/03/things-to-do-holiday-lights
that would rock some of that space as well as add light to an area that would be dark at night typically. Check it out! Its from OBH, so you know they are good ideas!
P.S. Check out some vinyl ideas too- they have killer colors and sizes now
Taxidermy. (But maybe that’s just me?)
Taxidermy of fake animals would be awesome and unexpected. 😀
My mom caught a ginormous marlin (fish) on her honeymoon in the 1970’s. We’re talking 6.5′ at least. And it was mounted. In a flexed position.
NOBODY has a place for a fish like that in a normal house! Hers eventually got damaged in a reno and trashed, but she always wanted to put it up. It would’ve been perfect in a similar space.
if you want to dived the right wall in half you: from where the upper railing ends you could run a white piece of trim out from the bottom and then paint two different colors. 2, you could paint any picture you wanted and paint a fake railing in front of the secne on the right wall. 3. the entery way into the kitchen dining room could have a rounded feature added to make the opening an arch. there are a lot of rectangular shapes going on though so that might stick out or it might soften things up.
Totally just a seasonal thing, but you can put very tall Christmas (or holiday-of-your-choice) trees in very tall spaces! What’s even better is that you can sometimes get very tall trees for much less than reasonably sized trees — usually, they’re only sold to malls, churches, and so-on, but friends of ours had a two-story living room, and they always put up a larger-than-average tree!
Or, you could get a potted tree for year round …. Maybe a lemon tree, that would be handy…..
Something like this could be awesome: http://poppytalk.blogspot.com/2012/07/weekend-project-paint-swatch-wall.html
Really, any big, graphic design composed of smaller pieces of colored material could look really great. You might want to use larger bits of paper or fabric to make it a bit less labor intensive, though.
I love that paint swatch wall!
OMG that wall is amazing. I don’t think I could ever pull that off though =/
I seem to recall that whenever confronted with a tall wall, Thom Filicia of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” would paint large blocks of alternating color onto the wall to visually break it up. There are a couple of episodes on YouTube where he does this.
If you have cats you could create an EPIC wall of cat shelves! (That’s what I’m planning to do if our next house has a wall like that for it)
Something like this:
http://www.moderncat.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ikeashelfkatttrappa1.jpg
OMG, my cats would love that!
Projected lights with gobos!
This is my fave idea here. But, you should probably explain a gobo…
For those who are not aware, a gobo is a cut-out that you put in front of a light. Often it’s a high intensity spotlight. When you turn the light on, the filter makes the light project in a shape with light/dark areas (so a tree outline, a window frame, company logo, snowflakes, etc. instead of a plain spotlight). They use them in theatre a lot.
You could do fun things with a Peter Pan silhouette, the Bat signal, outline of Dracula, stars, snowflakes, a falling leaves or falling snow design, Santa’s sled with falling presents…
I don’t have any epic ideas, just something I’ve learned from our 11 foot ceilings. Something that seems too big when it’s in your hands will not be too big when it’s on the walls. The kids’ school pictures are 8×10 in huge frames with wide mats, but they look like 5×7 pictures on our big tall wall.
Definitely go BIG with your decor.
Or, if you want the height to disappear, you could paint your wall color only 10 feet up (or so) and then have the rest of the walls the same color as the ceiling.
Pictures once you’ve decorated please!
installation art! http://www.lizmiller.com/work/installation/ballistic-boondoggle/
Shutter walls! You’d have to be seriously ambitious because this would be a ton of work, but the combination of texture, different sizes, and different colors would bring some serious pizzaz to your walls. http://www.oliveandlove.com/2010/08/my-shutter-wall-is-complete.html
My mother has these types of walls and her approach was to ignore the upper half. She painted the walls a warm color to keep the space from being too cold and hung things on the Lower half. You could do mirrors but get cheap builders mirrors and frame them up (they have products for that that are cheaper than buying huge expensive mirrors ) that just reflects the problem . I like the photo collage idea. I also saw Sonething in pinterest that has big empty frames layered on top of each other off center and spray painted different colors – super. Cool.
MURAL!!!! Are you kidding me! I would LOVE to have walls this big to do a large flowing mural on one and that brick tile up the other and then hang ANYthing you want on it. Or Living garden wall? Water feature? soooo many options. Please post a follow-up photo.
I would paint giant trees. And then do the living room so it looks like we’re elves. But I am a giant dork.
You are awesome!
YES! That was going to be my suggestion! But a single-color tree (like a silhouette) would also look cool, albeit less Elvish.
You could try hanging long strips of fabric. Or plants. Or put up tons of pictures, one over the other.
It’d be awesome to turn one of those into a living wall!
Put up a thing of lattice anchored to the wall by some boards, giving space to the back of the lattice, and then plant climbers in a planter at the bottom? Seems like the easiest way to do a living wall to me.
Ombre. Wall. Treatment. http://pinterest.com/pin/8585055510597499/ Can you imagine how dramatic it would be on a HUGE scale?!
I’ve done this before and instead of buying multiple shades of paint just buy the darkest and a lot of white. Paint the darkest area, mix in white, and paint the next area blending with the previous as you go. It looks AWESOME, btw. 🙂