Wallpaper can change how we view our interior spaces by adding pattern and color,
It’s well-known that wallpaper can spice up a room with pattern, but it also has a few other tricks up its sleeve. Depending on the design or even materials that go into making it, wallpaper can alter how we perceive spaciousness, light levels and movement and can create a sense of cohesiveness — or isolation — in a room.
1. Create a sense of spaciousness.
Unlike a flat, painted surface, many wallpaper patterns have a spatial component that makes a room appear larger or smaller in size, if even a room at all. Many scenic wallpapers lean on the use of artistic perspective.Objects closest are larger in size and darker in value. Receding away, the imagery diminishes in size and value, or becomes lighter. The wooded-landscape pattern of the wallpaper shown here brings a feeling of spaciousness far beyond the limitations of the wall. By adding the appearance of volume, shading is another way wallpaper can create a semblance of space. Shading an object makes it look three-dimensional, and this trellis design appears to have thickness. The flat area behind could read as sky or air, giving the sense that there’s an expanse behind the trellis. Not all wallpaper will make a room look bigger. If the imagery lacks a background, or negative space around it, the room will feel closed in and intimate, especially if the pattern is large.
2. Create an impression of movement.
There are many wallpaper patterns out there, but the more dynamic options create a sense of movement. Designs using diagonals, read as active and full of life, like the angle of an airplane thrusting into flight. Random wallpaper designs also have a sense of energy about them that aren’t found in designs with an obvious, repetitious pattern.