Struggling With How to Fill A Big, Empty Wall? We Help 4 Readers (& You!) Figure It Out

What’s that saying? Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach? Well, friends, I have a giant wall in my primary bedroom that I’ve been stumped on for the whole year we’ve lived here. So instead of figuring out what to do there, I’m going to use my brain power to help YOU figure out what to do, instead! Procrastination at its finest. (In all honestly, I *do* have some ideas but it would cost more than I want to or have to spend for a temporary rental solution, so, I’m holding off.)

For this week’s installment of Fix It Friday, we’re tackling the—dun, dun, dun…—big, empty wall. ::someone screams somewhere:: We’ve all been haunted by a stretch of wall in limbo at some point in our decorating pursuits, correct? So we put out a call to the people to send us your empty walls for us to sort through and dream up solutions.

The requests ran the gamut from people who were just looking for some art advice, and for others who were as lost on what to do as me my first time in Amsterdam trying to find the right train back to the airport (woof!). And I get it. The options for what to do on an empty wall are, in truth, endless. I sat and brainstormed general ideas for not more than four minutes and came up with the following (meaning, if I sat for longer, there would have been even more ideas, so, yeah…there’s a lot one can do).

Here’s what I came up with, in case anyone here just needs a bit of a jumping-off point:

• Large-scale art (1-2 pieces)
• Large floor or wall mirror
• Console table with mirror or art
• Shelves or shelving unit
• Wallpaper
• Molding or millwork
• Built-ins ($$$)
• Gallery wall
• Large-scale furniture piece (storage armoire, China cabinet, bookcases, etc.)
• Peg rail/rail/hooks
• Gallery wall hung from art rail
• Pedestal + vase + art
• Chair + lamp/side table + art
• Bench
• Plant wall
• Faux fireplace mantel (or real built-in gas fireplace)

See what I mean? SO. MUCH. TO. DO!

Now, some of these are very large investments that would involve a proper designer to draft out (I’m not that person). And besides, in the name of “Fix It Friday,” these should be quickish tackle-it-yourself types of solutions. So as fun as it would be to sit and try my hand at designing some custom built-in for a parents’ playroom or the dining room of a killer flat in London (you know who you are), I opted to pick homes that were more universal in their needs for everyone reading here.

Before diving into some inspiration and the reader’s home, I do want to say one thing (don’t I always?): You don’t have to fill every wall. Some walls can just…breathe. Especially if you already have a lot of art or furniture, having an empty stretch of wall might be what your room or space needs, honestly. Have it fill a purpose for you (storage, adding color through art, etc.) or leave it be.

Okay, let’s look at a few photos from the EHD archive. The funny thing, none of these are big blank walls. Obviously. Because literally every single wall in a room starts as a big blank wall before any design is done. But they all felt like they *could* have been blank walls if not for the solutions already enacted on them. Get me? From large-scale art, to many gallery walls, to peg rails over a bench, to a whole built-in, here’s some inspiration for you:

Alright, let’s look at some reader homes and walk through some of the ideas I’ve cooked up that don’t involve custom work (which is always an option but not really the vibe of Fix It Friday). First up is a wall next to a kitchen, next to a living room, next to a staircase with no real purpose.

The Pass-Through Limbo Wall

From the reader: “I recently moved into an old Victorian and have a large wall in the middle. You see it as soon as you walk in the home. It is in the living room and divides the kitchen and stairway. Dimensions: 8ft wide x 8ft 10” high. I would love a large piece of artwork to fill the space and bring color into the house. Would like to stay around $1,000.”

I’ve worked with many a wall just like this in my time and they can be tricky. You don’t want to put anything too bulky there since it’s a pass-through area. Our reader specifically requested art to add color into what looks like a fairly neutral home, so that’s just what I did. Now, choosing art for someone else, especially something this size, is a strange exercise. I’m going based solely on looks (plus, I don’t have much to work from in terms of color palette because I’m not seeing much of the home). But, as we’ve discussed time and again on this blog, art is hyper-subjective and personal. I doubt this reader will buy this exact thing, but maybe they’ll like the idea of a frame canvas (which is my favorite for a wall like this).

Because the budget was $1,000 and very large art is incredibly expensive, I opted to fill the wall with two other things to get away with a slightly smaller piece (though this one from Minted is sold in a size up to 48″x70″). A picture light makes the art feel extra special and purposeful. Like this was meant as a momentary pause for the viewer. The bench underneath adds some depth and also offers the functionality of being somewhere to pause to put on shoes (the entrance is nearby) or even place something down when you need a hand. I went with something a little modern just looking at the kitchen and couch in this great room area, though the staircase and detailing to the right feels more in line with the Victorian she mentioned so she could always find something a bit more traditional.

Bench | Framed Canvas | Picture Sconce

I did go over budget here. With a discount running on Minted for the art, all three pieces together are around $1,650. I figured she could use this as a jumping-off point and find a vintage bench for less, or even a less expensive piece of art (you wouldn’t believe what you could find at HomeGoods sometimes, as much as I don’t recommend building your collection from there).

The Above-Credenza Limbo Wall

From the reader: “I desperately need help figuring out what to do with this wall! Finishing this project would really help this room look complete. The house is a small 1920s Spanish bungalow. My style is California-Neutral-Scandi. I am a big concert-goer and I’ve thought about incorporating a vintage print of the Hollywood Bowl, my favorite place in LA, into a frame wall, but I’m really open to anything. My budget is around $3-4k.”

As soon as I saw that barrel ceiling, my heart swelled. I had a (sort of) similar setup in my last home, so it was nostalgic. Let me show you the other side to get a sense of the reader’s style:

With such a large window, I think the opposite wall needs something to balance it. I originally thought of suggesting she get rid of the credenza (relocate it somewhere else, rather), and do a large, open shelving system. That or a huge leaning floor mirror with an arched top to echo the window and bounce the light everywhere. I still think that’s one of the best options. BUT, I decided to work with what she had and came up with two ways to do it.

The first involves shifting the furniture piece directly in the middle of the wall and adding a large framed vintage print of the Hollywood Bowl, which she mentioned wanting. Now that I look at the below, I think this could be much larger, considering the window size. Maybe even the full width of the credenza. BUT, I’m going to stick to my guns here for this explanation. I wanted to bring some lighting to this wall to really make it a feature, so I found these cool yet simple sconces. These are hardwired, so she’d have to get junction boxes installed, or find something she liked that were plug-in. Because I felt the right side needed something more, I adding in a sculptural side chair.

Sconce | Hollywood Bowl Print | Side Chair

I was itching to add some shelving and do something a little more off-center, so I threw in a second, albeit similar, option. Here, I left the credenza where it was and balanced it with a linear, vertical wall sconce to the vignette itself, rather than the furniture piece, was centered. The shelving unit speaks to the mid-century pieces she has (ignore that there is a tree behind it…my Photoshop skills have limitations, people), and can collect pretty things. I used the same art print from the top in a smaller size, and added in an additional vintage print above to fill up the vertical space. I’m thinking the tree can either spin to put the bulk of the leaves in front of the window, or this whole thing can flip-flop with the tree on the right, the sconce on the left, and the furniture shifted right.

Wall Shelf | Vintage Print | Wall Sconce

The Dining Room Limbo Wall

From the reader: “I have a big wall I’ve been wanting to do a gallery wall on to add some color to our all-green everything dining ‘nook.’ Fun facts: We took an old headboard from an EH DIY (used for a guest room pre-kiddos in 2018) and made it into a bench for the dining nook you see in the photos. We get so many compliments on it. Measurements: Above the ‘headboard’ bench the wall measures 12.18′ wide by 4.8′ high on the short wall and 7.15′ high on the tall part of the wall. I would love a colorful gallery wall where I could include some of my kid’s art (3 and 1). The space is adjacent/open to the living room, so we’d want it to tie in with that.”

This one is so fun. Both because of the repurposed DIY (genius!) and because I’m inclined to always help a parent with littles out. I haven’t yet reached the stage with my daughter where we’re hanging her art (she only just started scribbling and coloring), but as soon as we do, I know just what I’m going to do…beautiful frames where swapping out art (or storing art) is super easy.

Below are the adjacent rooms she mentioned, and I feel like we can bring in a touch more color:

A gallery wall can quickly become visually overwhelming, so I opted for larger, fewer pieces, including a handful of frames for family photos or kid masterpieces. The frames you see below with the grommets in the corner as from this company called Wexel Art and they’re great. They’re single-pane plexi with tiny magnets to attach your art. Got something new to hang? Just move the magnets, replace the art, put the magnets back on and BOOM, done! It’s amazing. They come in tons of sizes, too. To round it out, I picked two more Blockshop prints because she mentioned loving their stuff, a hanging canvas from Upton (such wonderful stuff if you haven’t checked out that storefront), and a big, anchoring 3D piece for some interest. I kept everything mostly neutral since I know crayon and marker art can get…colorful. 🙂

The key here is staggering the pieces so they mostly follow the angle of the ceiling to fill the space and make the impact I think she wants to make. I was also thinking of suggesting they move the location of the sconce to the art wall and continue the art onto the wall where the sconce is now. That, or change up the light fixture to something with an even longer arm to act more as a chandelier. I think it could be very cool (maybe something like this if budget allows).

Top Row: White 3D Art | Black & White Blockprint | Floating Frame | Bottom Row: Floating Frame | Honey & White Blockprint | Hanging Canvas

Another Dining Room Limbo Wall (That’s Also A Pass-Through Wall)

From the reader: “I live in a loft condo in Chicago that is flooded with light and uninterrupted city views from floor-to-ceiling windows. The first floor has a living/ dining/ kitchen open floor plan combo great room. Because I have a corner unit, there is really only one true ‘decorating’ wall in the space, next to the dining table. When my husband and I bought our home, this wall had giant bookshelves that were too visually heavy for the otherwise airy space. Now that we removed them, we have the opposite issue with this big blank wall! The wall currently has my beloved ‘Blue Dog’ artwork on it, but the scale is not right for the space. The wall measures about 15 feet long by 10 feet tall. It is a moderate traffic wall, as we use this pathway to get between the hallway to the left of the wall and our den/tv room behind it and balcony doors next to it (on the right). There is about 3 feet of clearance between the wall and the dining chairs. For further scale references, the table is 5×5 square and the sofas are 9 feet long.”

I was really hoping for a scenario where I could recommend a wall of shelving. It’s the closest to “built-in” as we’re getting today since it’s an impactful nearly full-wall installation, but with an off-the-shelf product. This reader mentioned this being the only “decorating” wall in the whole of the living areas, so I wanted to provide lots of opportunity for their books, plants, a bar if they please, and other pretty things. Since it’s a pass-through area, whatever we put here had to be streamlined and not overly bulky. Not to mention they already removed bookcases from this wall.

Yes, they could just turn this into an art wall, and build around the piece they already had, but I felt like it could be more. I decided to take their existing framed art and shift it left (I also thought of putting a pedestal under it with a plant or vase, but didn’t want things to get too cluttered). With the remaining wall space, I found a modular and flexible shelving system from Room & Board. There are a ton of options for configurations, but I kept it simple here. This one is 80″ which should be just enough to fill this stretch of wall. It’s only 12 inches deep, so it shouldn’t interfere with the dining room furniture or with passersthrough. I gotta say, I’m into it and hopefully the reader will be, as well.

Shelving Unit

And that’s it for today! I hope something here got you to pause, think about your own blank wall and say to yourself “Oh! Maybe I can do something like that!” Even if that inspiration came from my initial laundry list of options. It really is endless, but I suggest you think about what you need or want to accomplish functionally in your space and start there. But also, just looking at something pretty is just fine, too. 🙂

We have a few more Fix It Fridays (FIFs, as I call them to myself) on the docket, but please let us know in the comments if there are small, tangible areas in your home you could use our help with. Until next time…

Opening Image Credits: Design by Velinda Hellen Design | Lead Designer: Julie Rose | Styling by Emily Edith Bowser | Photos by Sara Ligorria-Tramp | From: A Kitchen Makeover That Focused On Small Changes For A BIG Impact (Julie And Velinda Did It Again!)