What are some good ideas to dress up a wall without using wallpaper borders?

Question

I am painting a bathroom in a bar, and I was wondering what some good ideas were out there to dress up the walls? I don't want to use wallpaper, or put up wood trim.

Answer 1

a nice mirror

Answer 2

Try going into a site called glidden.com. They have a ton of features on there that allow you to paint any wall whatever color you want and see what it looks like after its done. I think they have wall paper on there too. If that doesn't work, try this. Go into Google or Yahoo image search. Key in wallpaper or wallpaper borders or whatever you think best describes the item you're looking for. Voila, you now have thousands of photographs to choose from. Most images link to a website for more information.

Answer 3

Paint a mural.

Very easy to do.

Paint the bathroom midnight blue on the walls. Load a large paint brush with very little white paint just on the tips. Hold the brush upright and run your finger over the bristles to allow the white paint to 'flick' onto the walls to look like specks of stars.... very tiny stars.
Let it dry.
Come back and paint the midnight blue over any imperfect or blobby looking stars.
Then .....
Paint the city. Use different sizes of rectangles in varying heights to make the 'buildings'.... just solid color gray. Then after they dry... add yellow rectangles on the buildings to act as 'windows'. You can make these as elaborate or as simple as you wish depending on your skill and ability with a paint brush.

After this is done.... find books that have the words
'Party all night' in different languages.
Use a paint pen so you have more control over the 'writing' part.
Write the phrase on the blue part in white paint in different fonts and different sizes all over the mural in different areas. One may be up in the sky in English... one may be an advertisement on the building in French...one may be on the side in Japanese....

Very contemporary look at not a lot of cost. Even the worst of artists could do this.

Answer 4

Score first with any abrasive tool or a blunt knife(you do not want to damage the plaster beneath) and then nothing beats a good soaking of the paper. You do not even have to add anything to the water and after a few minutes you will find the paper comes off in lovely strips, which I find most satisfying.It's amazing how many layers there are sometimes!

Answer 5

Your first consideration should be the decor of the bar and the effect that you want to have on patrons. You can achieve just about anything with paint and imagination.

Answer 6

Use a stencil to paint some kind of pretty design. Since it's a bathroom, perhaps a series of seashells and fish is what you want.

Answer 7

You can use furniture stain to get an old world look and it is really cheap. just rub it on in a circular motion till it looks good.

Also, you can buy a 5 gallon jug of joint compound and use it like you are icing a cake.

It will give a heavy stucco look and is also on the cheap.

Answer 8

You can make wall decals out of that felt with the adhesive backing. Those are super cute.

Answer 9

If its a ladies room how about stenciling? Mens room maybe a spongepainting or feathering with dark or lighter colors depending on your color base backround

Answer 10

get drunk patrons to paint on them