When it comes to home decor, the walls should weigh heavily into your plans. While most people spend time obsessing over the furniture, fabrics, accessories, and colors, the truth is that it’s the walls that act as the master canvas to offset these other features.

The wall provides the biggest impact to any room of the home and should be given its due importance. The col-ours you use will say a lot about your tastes, with each hue adding its own personality to your walls. Here are some tips to guide you through creating outstanding walls in your home:

• Choose the type of paint finishing you want. The higher the sheen of the paint, the higher is the shine and the greater the durability. Flat or matte veneers offer no shine and have lower durability while high-gloss paints are ultra-shiny and reflect light. Glossy paints are great for places prone to getting dirty such as the kitchen, hallways, kid’s rooms, and doors. However, it’s the in-between sheen of eggshell, satin, and semi-gloss that are ideal for large expanses of the inner walls of the house. They are more practical, decorative along with getting the job done.
• Go with the 60-30-10 rule when selecting paint colors; the 60% should represent your dominant wall color, the 30% is your secondary color reflected in the upholstery and the last 10% represents your accessory color. This ensures a balance among colors with just the right pop for creating interest. The best way to go about it is by using neutral wall paint colors that are also present in the upholstery, curtains or rugs.
• Start selecting paint color schemes for the formal areas of the house first, including the hall, sitting room, and dining room. Choose a color from these schemes and repeat in other parts of the home to create a flow. Since bedrooms go well with pale, restful colors in shades of blue and green, you could always convert the wall behind your bed as an accent wall and paint it a different hue. Light colors also make rooms appear more spacious and airy, so paint according to how you want your room to look.
• Follow the rule of sticking to just three colors per room. Limiting your palette keeps your room from looking an eyesore or getting too ‘loud’. You should also follow the rule of painting dark to light shades vertically. While the floor can look darker, the walls should be medium color range and the ceiling should ideally be the lightest.