The upholstered walls They were for a long time symbols of luxury and wealth. Even today we can see some of those upholstered with damask, silk and brocade in old palaces and stately buildings. It was a technique widely used at that time that today is once again relevant.
Upholstery is a great alternative to wallpaper or paint when it comes to adding character to a room. We can upholster from a single wall to integral rooms, thus providing a original and warm finish to stay. The key is knowing how to choose the most suitable fabrics to achieve our goal.
Advantages of upholstering the walls
Wall fabrics are a great alternative to wallpaper or paint to add personality to rooms. They can be used in all types of interior design projects in order to provide good insulation and a specific aesthetic to the room. Its use has multiple advantages:
- They hide irregularities surface of the wall.
- They provide a good thermal isolation. When there was no type of insulation, the fabrics created a warm screen to the rooms. Today they continue to act as a thermal insulator, creating a barrier that helps regulate the temperature of the rooms and therefore, the sensations of cold and heat.
- They provide sound isolation. Upholstered walls reduce reverberation by absorbing sound waves. This makes the echo disappear inside the house and prevents our neighbors from suffering less noise when we listen to music or have guests. There is also a range of acoustic fabrics that reduce echo, ideal for places with ambient noise such as restaurants, work areas, theaters, cinemas, projection rooms.
- They stabilize moisture, facilitating a warm atmosphere.
- They bring character to the room through texture, motifs or color contrasts ... The upholstery of walls can also be combined with other resources and decorative elements, giving us the possibility of creating environments with very different styles: sophisticated, rustic, minimalist ...
Types of fabrics
Not all fabrics are suitable for upholstering the walls. Its composition, its plot and your behavior both when upholstering the wall and later, will influence the final result. In order to make sure that the chosen fabric is suitable to cover our wall, it is best to go to a specialized store.
In general terms, the ideal is to search resistant fabrics, washable and does not wrinkle easily. Strong canvases, washable linen fabrics and synthetic fibers are excellent choices to dress different spaces in our home: bedrooms, living rooms, hallways ...
Natural or synthetic? Natural fabrics generally have a soft touch and breathe better than synthetics, being cool in summer and warm in winter. Synthetic fabrics, meanwhile, are more durable and are easier to maintain. Stains can be cleaned with a wet cloth and a little neutral detergent, unlike cleaning natural fabrics, which must be done dry.
The most popular fabrics for upholstering walls are:
- Jute. Jute is a tough, natural and versatile fabric widely used in upholstery. A rustic fabric used for years to isolate rooms from external noise and protect it from moisture. It is a fabric that also adapts easily to the walls because it is very moldable. It only presents one problem: many times its shape changes and it does not look the same on the wall as you saw it for the first time.
- Canvases and canvases. Canvas has always been a widely used material for wall covering by direct gluing, nailing or stapling. They are fabrics that can be occasionally washed with a soapy sponge and rinsed without getting soaked. Their colors are usually solid and there is no risk of color fading.
- Linen fabrics. It is linen is a resistant fabric that repels dust. It can be found in different shades, textures and patterns. It has a great advantage over other fabrics, and that is that it is presented in wider formats than the rest of natural fabrics, which allows the walls to be covered in a better way. It is usually placed on battens.
- Varnished fabrics. The varnishing gives the fabrics a great surface regularity and a satin hue that makes them very interesting. They provide protection against moisture and are not easily stained. They also do not deform when tensioned, which allows us to nail them, staple them or glue them more easily.
- Synthetic fiber fabrics. They are not affected by rot as occurs with natural fibers and can imitate these, presenting another advantage over them: their easy cleaning. They are fabrics that can be washed.
How to upholster the walls
Wall fabrics can be laid in several ways: glued, on a frame or in the form of panels. Glued fabrics are fabrics designed for wall upholstery that are placed directly on the wall, without the need for wooden frames on which to staple the textile as occurs in English upholstery.
Whichever method should be used is important prepare the wall and make sure that there are no humidity that could determine the issues. It may also be interesting to remove the skirting boards in order to later use the edges to hide the edges of the glued fabrics and thus achieve a more elegant effect.
Ideally, place the roll of fabric in a vertical position on the wall and, as you move forward, loosen the fabric and adhere it to the wall. To ensure a correct grip on glued fabrics, it is advisable to press the fabric with your hand or with a spatula, without overstressing it. If the walls that are draped have windows or doors, they will be lined as if they were one more wall and later the edges of each wall will be flush again with a spatula to cut the fabric at edges, angles and perimeter of openings (windows and doors) .