This New DIY Trend Gives Your Walls the Most Luxe Look Ever
It’s no secret that many designers, bloggers, and Instagrammers love a good geometric pattern: Many swoon over black-and-white checkered floor tiles and are all about a painted mural or a removable wallpaper featuring just about any graphic motif. Why stop there, though? I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get a bit edgier and take the shape trend — be it triangles, circles, or half arches — to the next level with some dimension. If you’re looking to majorly transform average walls or plain window frames, wooden geometric cutouts will be a major trend in 2022.
Artist, blogger, and Small/Cool 2021 designer Liz Kamarul has incorporated wooden shapes into a few of her amazing home projects, and she’s one of the first people I’ve seen do this kind of thing. Above, you can see how she turned one of her living room walls into a 3D work of art using triangles cut out of plywood, which she spray painted black and attached to her already black wall using a nail gun (you could also probably use liquid nails if that’s preferred). The result is a dynamic, tone-on-tone look.
Kamarul opted to cover only part of the wall with the plywood triangles, fitting them together like puzzle pieces on the left-hand side of the space and then splaying them wider towards the right side of the wall to create an asymmetrical sculptural effect. (The reasoning behind this? As Kamarul explains in her blog post detailing the project, her dog ran through the living room as she was laying out her triangle cutouts; she ended up actually liking the pattern that came about and decided to just go with it!). Traditionalists may want to cover an entire wall in a uniform pattern, but if you’re willing to embrace a more eclectic look in your space, why not make like Kamarul and cover only part of an area?
Kamarul has gotten creative with wood scraps more than once in recent years. She also added a checkerboard pattern to a little nook in her bathroom using a nail gun and scrap wood squares (this time unfinished versus painted wood). Again, the end result adds a ton of texture and visual interest to the small space, and I love how she finished this half-wall project off with a handy matching shelf, which she decked out with art and objects. Color lovers could, of course, paint their wood scraps (those who really want to go wild with color could choose to feature four or five different hues), but the natural wood tone Kamarul’s bathroom pairs well with her somewhat busy patterned wallpaper print.
Finally, in her living room, Kamarul had fun with more triangles. This time around, she coated the triangles in white to match the room’s wall color and then created a border around her window with them, pointed side out. The result here? An unexpected but super-fun way to make undressed windows feel a little funkier.
Leave it to a superstar blogger to beat me to riffing on this type of geometric wall treatment; in her dining room, Brittany Jepsen of The House That Lars Built used squares and circles to create a playful pattern on her faux wainscoting, which she then painted a calming blue to match the room’s trim work elsewhere. Paired with floral wallpaper, the shapes look even more whimsical.
So what do you think? Are 3D geometric wooden shapes a trend you’d incorporate in your home? For those with little ones, shapes would make a fantastic addition to a playroom or nursery, but I also like the idea of using them to jazz up a utilitarian space, such as a mudroom or home office. Talk about a chic Zoom background!
This post originally ran on Apartment Therapy. See it there: This New DIY Will Make Your Windows and Wall Treatments Look Way More Luxe and Fun