The Modern Rules of Wall Decor - Mhoksh

Wall decor is one of the essential elements of modern home decor. It is as important as assembling stylish furniture and creating an interior finishing that matches your taste and stature.

If artsy enough, wall decor can become the focal point of your entire living space. There are a few basic rules of modern wall decor that one needs to follow to get an ideal outcome. Here we are sharing those golden rules of modern wall decor that can transform your bland wall into the room’s main point of interest.

The Odd Number Rule

One of the most basic but effective rules of modern wall decor is the odd number rule. When you want your wall to be the focal point of your living room you must follow this rule. The rule simply states that we should never use two, four or six objects to decorate a room. If you want to hang photo frames on your wall, go for three or five or even one big frame. It has been noticed that objects arranged in odd numbers are more pleasing to the human eye.

The Rule of Perfect Position

Well, there’s no pre-defined perfect position for wall decor but surely there are rules that help you choose the perfect position according to your living room. The ideal position for attractive wall decor is the wall near to which the couch or the sofa is placed, and the wall that faces the front door.

If a wall already has an element of attraction, let’s say a TV, you should refrain from hanging a painting or wall arts on the same wall. 

The Principle of Harmony for the perfect wall decor

This rule states that the wall decor needs to be in harmony with the furniture and other elements of the room. You should not pick just any wall art because you find it attractive. While choosing elements for your wall decor you should see how they match and blend with other things in the room.

If your living room is decorated in vintage style with heavily carved wooden furniture, a small photo frame with modern art will be a mismatch that will ruin the ambiance of the living room.

The Rule of Creating a Theme for Your Wall Decor

One of the prominent elements of modern home decor is thematic designing. Instead of randomly picking and choosing different elements you should design your entire room around a theme. Choose a theme that reflects your personality or the way you want to present yourself to the world and select elements of wall decor accordingly.

The Accent Wall Rule

An accent wall is the wall that is designed to break the monochrome effect in the room. This wall is painted in a bold color or wallpaper with special prints used to present it as a distinctive element of the room. You can choose any wall to be your accent wall. However, it's preferable to choose a wall without a window and which is lighted by the natural lights. If there is no such wall with natural light you can use artificial lighting to illuminate your accent wall. Never place furniture on the side of your accent wall. 

The Principle of Eye Level Focus

Whenever you are hanging pictures, paintings, house accessories or any type of wall art as a decorative item, you must position them at eye level. 145 cms from the floor is considered the perfect position for any such wall decor items. 

The center of the painting or the frame should be at a height of 145 cms from the floor. If you are creating a gallery wall, the centerpiece or the main picture should be hung at eye level and the other frames should be hung in a relative position to the main picture. 

The mirror rule

Mirrors, the timeless piece of wall decor, will never lose their significance in interior decoration. The most important thing about mirrors is that they can complement any theme and pattern of interior decoration. They visually expand the space and make the room brighter if placed at the right place and angle.

If you have a smaller room it becomes more important to incorporate a large size of the mirror in your wall decor theme. You can also opt for a mirror with round edges to break the monotony of the rectangle, square and straight lines all around the room.

The Principle of 60-40 Ratio for Ideal Wall Decor

You can get a wide variety of wall decor items online as well as offline but it doesn’t mean you’ll cover every inch of your wall with these items. A general rule of thumb is that you can cover 60% of the area with wall decor and must leave 40% of the area blank. This rule applies even when you are hanging a piece of painting or a cluster of frames behind your sofa. The size of your painting should be around 60% of the width of the sofa.     

Balancing with a Difference

Decorating every wall of the room in a balanced way is an important rule of modern wall decor. We cannot make one wall an art gallery and leave the other one completely blank. But, this does not mean we need to copy the same pattern on every wall. In fact, we need to pay attention to creating a difference between decorations of different walls while trying to strike a balance. You can use varieties of shapes, colors and elements on different walls to make your living area an interesting place for visitors.  More importantly, for yourself.

Defy the Rules

Decorating your wall is a work of creativity and the most important rule for any creativity is – Defy the Rules. 

The rules of modern wall decor, which we discussed above, are meant for your help. Let not any rule limit your creativity in any way. If there’s something that feels perfect to you, try it without hesitation even if it is breaking any of the above-mentioned rules.  

Hope these basic rules of modern home decor give you a foundation base for building your personalized wall decor plans. By keeping these simple rules in mind you can enhance the look of your house even if you don’t have an eye for design.