How to embrace the half-and-half look

If you're struggling to settle on a paint colour for your living room, why not embrace the half-and-half look?

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Home decorating is a thrilling prospect for many property owners – opportunities to add personal touches to living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms is part of the charm of owning a house, rather than renting.

If you want to strip wallpaper or apply a fresh coat of paint, you can do so. Perhaps the garden is getting you down – replacing the lawn, laying tiles or even adding an al fresco area area just some of the options available to you.

That said, the plethora of decorating ideas swirling around the net and splashed across the pages of interior design magazines can make it hard to settle on a particular aesthetic. If you're struggling to settle on a paint colour for your living room, why not embrace the half-and-half look?

What's the half-and-half look?

If you can't choose between wallpaper and paint, consider adopting the half-and-half look in your living space.

Many homeowners opt for for two shades of paint on a wall for a striking effect, but by embracing paint and wallpaper on the upper and lower parts of the wall, you get the benefits of an exciting pattern, along with a fresh colour of your choice.

You can switch it up and apply Resene wallpaper to the upper half on the wall too, if you prefer.

It's not all 50/50

While you may wish to measure the height of the wall and divide this by two to obtain the exact midpoint, this isn't mandatory.

In fact, you may find that a room seems larger by painting the lower two-thirds one shade, and applying wallpaper to the upper third of your living room wall.

Sometimes, mixing up the proportion of paint to wallpaper can make for an interesting look.

Pick your colours carefully

Mixing up your wall design with the half-and-half look is admittedly a more daring move than opting for a single block shade, like Resene Half Dutch White.

It's essential to pick your wallpaper and paint carefully – select a hue that's used in your desired wallpaper's print and match your paint colour accordingly. You can either use the same or similar shade for an integrated look or choose a complementary paint shade.

Given that the half-and-half look is a bold approach, it can be a wise move to choose wallpaper that plays with more neutral hues, like stone and slate. You might even choose colours that complement existing design features, such as built-in storage or furniture.

Colour mentioned in this article

Swatch
Resene Half Dutch White