Back to the wall: set the right tone in your home

Having collaborated for seven years with US lifestyle expert Martha Stewart, Melañio Gomez knows a thing or two about interior design. The internationally renowned stylist/art director/set designer gets busy with your walls.

In terms of colour, what’s in and what’s out for painting?

Antique rose, hotel burgundy and forest green are out: if you’re going to use these colours, look for livelier versions. I look through hundreds of magazines all the time, and every month they’re hyping a new colour. What’s important is choosing something you can live with. Pick a tone in the colours of the room’s furniture such as a brown leather sofa or red chair, and take that as your lead for the walls.

What’s hot for wallpaper?

Geometrical shapes and larger patterns are a lot more modern than old-fashioned florals. Check out the funky wall decorations by Arte. In the US, the trend is more for natural textures and motifs, like wood grain, raffia and bamboo. In Paris, it’s more for fabrics, like damask. People are also using decals on walls, like the silhouette of a chandelier or candlesticks.

Stencilling is very popular. Any caveats?

Watch out when doing borders around windows and edges below ceilings and above baseboards: it can look country kitsch. If you’re afraid of committing too much to a stencil look for a room, choose one wall – like the one which your headboard rests against in your bedroom.

What common mistakes do people make when they paint?

The finish: gloss and semi-gloss work fine for your front door and outside, but they don’t need to be used in kitchens. In bathrooms try satin or eggshell finishes. Paints have evolved to the point where it’s easy to wash walls and other surfaces if they get dirty. Magic Erasers are great for removing scuffs. If you have walls that are less than perfect, flat and ultra-flat paints are a lot more forgiving: every crack and imperfection shows with gloss and semi-gloss.

What mistakes have you made before doing walls?

The classic: buying four gallons of paint before testing the colour on the wall. Judging from a paint swatch in a store is a mistake because the fluorescent light is probably different from the light in the room you’re going to paint. So you should look at the paint swatch in the room itself at the time of day you’re going to spend most of your time there to get an idea if the colour will work. If you don’t get home from work until 19.00 most days, don’t look at the swatch in the room at noon, because that’s not when you’ll be seeing the walls most. Then buy a small pot of the colour you like and try it on the wall.

People often opt for white when doing walls in Belgium because they think it maximises light and space. What are the drawbacks, if any, in doing walls in white?

Mainly boredom: people will often settle for ‘landlord white’, the colour landlords paint their rental properties in. But there are hundreds of different shades of white, some with blue tones, some with pink or yellow tones – choosing a warmer white can do wonders.

Any tips for making a room seem larger?

Paint the ceiling and trim the same colour as the walls. If you decide to do the trim – window and door frames, baseboards – in a different colour to the walls, don’t use white unless the walls are white. If the walls are coloured, use the lightest colour on the same paint swatch: white trim on a coloured room makes the room look outlined. If you want to make a home look larger, paint the entry hall or space a different colour to the rest of the home: this makes people feel like they’re entering a new space after the entrance.

What’s your advice to people trying to achieve a certain look?

Tear out pages of things you like in magazines and take them with you to paint and decorating stores like Flamant, Miniox, and Farrow and Ball. Shops can sometimes scan a swatch or photo to help you get the exact colour you’re looking for.