Painted Walls – An accent wall can add so much color and personality to a room. These creative homeowners featured in our series used their walls as a blank painting canvas.
They let their imaginations and color palettes run wild, taking inspiration from a favorite clutch bag or a pattern to create whimsical custom wallpaper. Take a look and get inspired to pull out your paintbrush and paint on the walls like a kid again.
Floral-Inspired Murals
Rikki Snyder
Homeowner Laurie Rabe of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, used acrylic paints to create cheerful murals in her family’s home.
In daughter Olivia’s bedroom, Rabe painted a beautiful mural depicting fairies swinging from flower stems and birds smelling the flowers.
Rikki Snyder
This nook surrounding a custom-built daybed is hand-painted in cheery colors and patterns. Rabe’s painting ideas come from magazines, historical wallpapers, ceramics, textiles, and art from the past.
“I especially love Art Nouveau and Craftsman-style designs, and I try to incorporate my love of gardening and flowers into my work,” she says. “I travel to museums and gardens wherever I go and take photographs of specimens, which I then try to incorporate.”
Rikki Snyder
In the family room, Rabe used glazing techniques for a rustic, Tuscan folk art design.
“I sometimes make up templates of flowers and leaf shapes to use the same shapes over and over, to give the wall design some unity, similar to wallpaper,” she says.
Frame-worthy in Los Angeles
Stacy Levin
Ken Pelletier and Maritza Gully turned the garage in their Southern California home into a play space for their two kids.
They created a custom accent wall inspired by Frames wallpaper by Graham and Brown using a black permanent marker. The graphic wall serves as a stylish backdrop for their bike.
Clutch Design for a Kid’s Room
Heather Banks
This 6-year-old’s bedroom in Austin, Texas, features bright shades of red, blue, green, and yellow.
Zack Avila hand-painted the mural based on the pattern of a Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper clutch that his wife, Robin, received as a gift while pregnant with their son.
Playful Patterns
Lindsay von Hagel
Adam and Alicia Rico’s home in Austin features a kaleidoscope of colors.
Adam designed a Southwestern-inspired stencil for their dining room and hand-painted the walls in shades of purple and violet to create an ombré effect.
Lindsay von Hagel
Daughter Dotty’s bedroom bursts with art and color, including a hand-painted cross-stitch mural.
The Ricos painted a thrift store rocking chair white and reupholstered the seat in a fresh, graphic fabric.
Lindsay von Hagel
Without using a plan or stencil, the Ricos painted this vibrant geometric mural in their bedroom. After picking out 11 colors, they painted five or six triangles per night until they’d covered the wall.
The handmade quilt by Adam’s mom served as inspiration.
Polka Dot Powder Room
Jason Snyder
Homeowner Julia Reynolds created this accent wall in the guest bathroom of her Pittsburgh home after being inspired by a Marimekko wallpaper pattern.
She first made a grid of sponge-applied paint, then used a brush on each and every circle to blur the edges. The DIY project took about a week to complete.
Vivid Brushstrokes for an 18th-Century Cape Cod
Rikki SnyderRikki Snyder
Artist Kristin Nicholas used her paintbrush to touch nearly every wall in her family’s home in Franklin County, Massachusetts.
In the living room library, she created her own wallpaper by cutting shapes out of FedEx boxes, layering the shapes on top of each other, and hand-painting each shape. The result is a vibrant and colorful reading sanctuary.
Rikki Snyder
One of Nicholas’ free-form murals in the dining room features chickens, birds, flowers, leaves, guinea hens and peacocks, offering a tribute to their animal-friendly home.
Below the chair rail, Nicholas created a plaid pattern designed with painter’s tape to contrast with the playful forms above.
Circles for a Well-Rounded Entry
Valerie McCaskill Dickman
Houzz contributor Sarah Greenman really wanted wallpaper in the entryway of her family’s ranch home in Dallas, but it didn’t fit the budget. Instead, she painted circles on the wall, inspired by Jamie Meares of Furbish Studio.
The blue door color is custom, and the bird painting is her own work.
Buzzing With Diamonds
Kimberley Bryan
A hand-painted diamond motif found on interior designer Jennifer Ryan‘s living room wall has a personal connection. All of the diamonds are connected with little painted bees as a tribute to when Ryan’s husband, Scott Hendrickson, used to keep them.
50 Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Bedroom Accent Walls Wall ideas - The wall behind the headboard in your bedroom is an ideal canvas for showcasing your creativity. Here are 50 inspiring accent wall ideas — gallery walls, boho-style…
50 Cool Outdoor Showers Ideas to Inspire You As days get longer and hotter, the idea of a refreshing shower outside sounds pretty good. If you think you’d like a cool outdoor shower someday, here are 50 stylish…
7 Smart and Stylish Laundry Rooms Including the appropriate paint shade, floor tile pattern, or storage space item can brighten your state of mind on washday-- simply like using your preferred clothing. The adhering to laundry…
The 47 Most Popular Closet Photos of All Time These closet spaces are the stuff many home dreams are made of — flawless organization, plush seating, and incredibly flattering lighting and mirrors. Don't those sound like great features to…
5 Small Bathrooms That Stretch Design Imagination If there's one thing I've learned from bathroom designers, it's that successfully designing a tiny space often means shedding one's fears and inhibitions. Whether you're remodeling a compact guest bath…
13 Tile Ideas You’ll Want to See With the popularity of humble subway tile and simple stone slabs, it’s easy to forget that there are so many other ways tile can bring incredible life and drama to…
The 10 Most Popular Powder Rooms So Far in 2025 Due to its small size, a powder room offers an opportunity for interior designers, architects, and homeowners to make a big impact without breaking the bank. The most popular powder…
17 Outstanding Outdoor Rooms We have no doubt come a long way in how we treat our outdoor garden spaces as extensions of our homes, fulfilling a need to sit outside and enjoy the…
The 10 Most Popular Laundry Rooms So Far in 2025 Laundry Room Ideas - A look at the following of the most-saved laundry photos so far this year reveals that style trends typically found in kitchens and bathrooms are branching…
The 10 Most Popular Home Gyms So Far in 2025 Now more than ever, people are looking for ways to stay fit and healthy at home. While some of the most popular home gym photos this past winter are aspirational…
The 10 Most Popular Bathrooms So Far in 2025 Bathrooms should, above all else, function well for our daily hygiene. But that doesn’t mean you have to skimp on style. And the following the most popular bathroom photos so…
How to Remodel Your Kitchen You’ve decided to remodel your kitchen. Now what? Not knowing where to start, many homeowners start by looking at kitchen appliances. Others collect inspiring kitchen photos. Some homeowners decide they…
10 Kitchen Islands That Feature Banquette Seating While kitchen islands are among the most popular hangout spots in homes, their typical counter stool seating isn’t always the best layout for conversation. The designers of these 10 kitchens…
The 10 Most Popular Bedrooms So Far in 2025 A bedroom is among the most personal spaces in a home — it’s where you start your day and turn in for the night — so getting its comfort and…
12 Ideas for Creative Desks Creative Desks Idea - Whether you run a business from home or just use your desk for checking email, your home office has the distinct advantage of being at home.…
6 Ways to Cool Off Without Air Conditioning Cool Off Without Air Conditioning - Having an air conditioner is a near-must in climates where months-long heat waves are a summer season norm. And with that comes a just…
6 Blue Paints for Stylish Kitchen Cabinets Blue is a reliable choice for kitchen cabinets. It’s a color that significantly departs from the typical white, gray, or wood cabinet choices and yet is still versatile enough to…
Top 7 Winning Kitchens Color Palettes From Spring 2025 A lot enters into the design of a kitchen. A counterproductive idea for achieving a stylish space is to not overthink it. One method kitchen designers do that is by…
20 Outdoor Rooms With Entertaining Flair Summer offers a lot for us to celebrate: vacations, long days, warm nights, and visits with friends near and far. Outdoor entertaining, from lunch on the deck and happy hour…
20 Home Offices With Wonderful Views Home Offices - Whether you’re in a rural or urban location, can you gaze out of a window from your home desk onto something tranquil, interesting, or if you’re really…
11 Elements of the Perfect Sunroom Sunrooms support leisurely living and increase square footage — often with lower construction costs than a fully finished room. If you're thinking about someday adding a sunroom or turning an…
5 Pretty and Practical Powder Rooms A powder room is an excellent area to develop something unanticipated. The tiny, commonly windowless areas can come to be a gem box or depository in which style aspects obtain…
12 Extreme Interior Designs "You have to risk going too far to discover just how far you can really go.” — T.S. Eliot When it comes to home décor, this sentiment certainly rings true.…
12 Home Office Desks That Are Out of The Ordinary Whether you run a business from home or just use your desk for checking emails, your home office has the distinct advantage of being at home. So why stick with…
5 Stylish Bathrooms Under 75 Square Feet A little style initiative goes a long way in a relatively small bathroom. That's because straightforward products as well as fixtures obtain a chance to really stand out. The ideal…
10 Fresh Tile Ideas You Might Have Missed This Week Tile Ideas - See a roundup of new tile styles, patterns, materials, and more featured in these articles. 1. Edgy bath. This punchy Australian home does a lot to dazzle…
6 Kitchen Makeovers That Benefited From Refaced Cabinets Perhaps, cabinets make or damage a kitchen. They take up one of the most aesthetic rooms and supply the most operate with storage ability and also the company. That's likewise…
You must be logged in to post a comment.