The nuances of wall decoration in the kitchen
Considering the options for wall decoration in the kitchen, the owner of the apartment must take into account the features of the operation of the room, its parameters and the location of the windows relative to the cardinal points (south-north).
In our country, it is customary to organize everyday meals in the kitchen, and therefore family members spend quite a lot of time in this room. Given this, you need to most conveniently arrange furniture and equipment, as well as responsibly approach the selection of options for finishing materials.
Before you finish the walls in the kitchen, it is important to familiarize yourself with the main factors that influence decision making:
- High temperature at the cooking place. Materials in close proximity to the hob must retain their original appearance under prolonged exposure to elevated temperatures.
- High humidity. Finishing materials should not be afraid of the effects of steam arising from cooking and water used, for example, for washing dishes.
- The need to use household chemicals. The operating conditions of the premises imply the appearance of a large number of spots of fat and vegetable juices. Furniture and decoration materials must withstand frequent surface treatments with chemical cleaners.
- Smells. It is advisable to cover the walls in the kitchen with a material that does not hold the smell of food, therefore, it is not recommended to use coatings made from natural raw wood in the apartment.
- Space decoration. It is desirable to decorate the room near the windows or in free spaces away from the sink and stove.
- The size of the room. No need to blindly follow modern ideas in the design of kitchen interiors. Each finished project must be considered in terms of features and dimensions of the room. So, for small spaces in the "Khrushchev" is not worth using large details of the decor.
- Placement of design elements. Artistic products are best placed at eye level.
Wall Finishing Options
Wall decoration in rooms with high humidity requires a special approach. During the cooking process, vaporization occurs, oily spots appear on the surfaces, and therefore it is important to choose a coating that will look beautiful and, at the same time, withstand such influences and easy to wash.
Tile
The classic way to decorate the walls in the kitchen. Ceramics can finish the walls completely or lay out only an apron along the sink, stove with hood and table for cooking. The popularity of the tile is due to its indisputable merits and a large selection of color schemes in stores. About the choice of material for the apron, read this article.
Pros:
- excellent moisture resistance;
- tiles are easy to clean. Even old greasy stains can be easily removed with liquid products without harming the surface;
- not afraid of high temperatures;
- A large selection of different colors and textures in stores.
Minuses:
- without experience it is difficult to lay the tiles qualitatively yourself, therefore, there are significant costs for professional wages;
- if you want to replace the finish, you will need large investments and heavy dismantling;
- the cost of beautiful and high-quality tiles is high.
Wallpaper
A budget way to update the interior, but for long-term use it is necessary to choose trellises with certain characteristics, well, or more often to update the coating. All work is easy to do on our own, but the base should be perfectly flat - any roughness or unevenness will ruin the look. Read about the selection of trellis in the kitchen here.
Pros:
- low cost;
- simple gluing process. In the presence of a leveled surface, all work can be done independently;
- large selection in stores;
- Replacing old wallpapers with new ones will not take a relatively long time.
Minuses:
- Not all wallpapers are suitable for use in this room. You need to choose vinyl products or trellis with fiberglass. Even if such wallpaper is stained with grease, dirt can be washed, but the cost of such material is higher than that of ordinary paper wallpaper;
- the service life of cheap materials, under these operating conditions, does not exceed two years;
- Before pasting, it is necessary to level the surface, which, having no skills, is difficult to do.
Lining
An ideal option for a country cottage is to sheathe the walls with a natural lining. For a city apartment, especially a small area, this decoration option will not work.
Pros:
- natural wood perfectly resists the effects of ultraviolet radiation - it does not fade in the sun;
- wood coated with protective compounds is easy to clean. For these operating conditions, it is recommended to choose spruce, oak or pine material;
- simple installation;
- lined kitchen lining looks solid and status.
Minuses:
- high cost of quality material;
- the tree is subject to burning.
Plastic panels
Using this material, you can quickly and with minimal cost finish walls in any room. Plastic is easily washed from grease and other contaminants. If repair is necessary, partial replacement can always be done without completely dismantling the coating.
Pros:
- simple installation;
- low cost of materials;
- a large selection of different colors in stores;
- panels are not afraid of high humidity;
- easy care.
Minuses:
- preparation of the frame for cladding is required;
- when burning emits caustic smoke.
Natural stone and brick
To use such expensive material as natural stone, it is best in large-area apartments or country houses. The best option for the kitchen is granite. Recent trends in the design of spaces in the loft style imply the use of ordinary or facing bricks, but to reduce the cost of repairs, you can use special brick tiles.
Pros:
- immunity to high temperatures and chemicals;
- the material does not absorb odors;
- moisture resistance;
- high strength;
- does not decay and does not support the appearance of mold or fungus;
- polished stone is easily washed from any type of dirt.
Minuses:
- high price;
- for installation, you need to attract specialist finishers.
Dyeing
The easiest and most reliable way to get a beautiful and reliable coating in the kitchen. It’s easy to paint the walls - a novice will do the job. The main thing is that before staining, the base is prepared qualitatively. We wrote about the choice of paint colors here.
Pros:
- the abundance of options for paint and varnish material in stores;
- low cost of most types of paint (water-dispersion compositions are considered the best option for the kitchen);
- ease of applying paint to walls (with high-quality preliminary preparation for painting);
- painted surfaces are easy to clean.
Minuses:
- high-quality surface preparation is required.
Decorative plaster
Plaster can be used as a finishing material only under normal humidity conditions, so it is applied to walls in large rooms, selecting other materials for the cooking and washing areas.
The same type of plaster will look different if you change the technique of applying and forming the surface. Thus, you can get a unique finish that is difficult to repeat in another, even the same, room.
Pros:
- unique, unique texture;
- a large selection of colors in stores;
- seamless technology.
Minuses:
- cracks may appear on the surface over time;
- can not be used near the sink;
- high cost of work.
Cork
The trend of recent years is to decorate your own home with environmentally friendly materials. Cork coating fully meets the requirements of environmental safety and is therefore the most popular option for wall decoration. However, not many can afford such material - the cost is too high.
This material is produced in the form of rolls or individual tiles.
Pros:
- ecological purity of the material;
- moisture resistance of the coating;
- the convenience of working with cork sheets due to the low weight;
- high strength;
- under dynamic action, the material returns to its original form;
- additional soundproofing of the room;
- cork does not absorb odors and vapors;
- hypoallergenic material;
- the material is not susceptible to decay, mold and fungus;
- fire safety coating;
- ease of care;
- the coating is antistatic and does not attract dust to the surface;
- additional thermal insulation of the room.
Minuses:
- high price;
- complicated installation.
MDF
For the manufacture of this type of panels, high-pressure sawdust and small wood shavings are used. After forming the panel, it is covered with a special protective polyvinyl chloride film.
The most expensive panels are veneered. In their manufacture uses a thin natural wood veneer. The most popular are oak, beech and walnut panels. Painted and laminated options are less expensive.
Pros:
- an abundance of colors and textures in stores;
- high speed and ease of installation;
- moisture resistant surface;
- immunity to temperature extremes;
- affordable cost (but higher than that of simple plastic panels);
- the material does not rot, does not support the formation of mold and fungus.
Minuses:
- at high humidity, the panels can swell and change shape. So that this problem does not arise and the decoration of the premises does not turn out to be a waste of money, it is recommended that the trimmed ends be treated with plumbing sealant.
Material Guidelines
When choosing finishing materials, you should consider the features of the room.
Depending on area
For spacious rooms any finishing options are suitable, but if the task is to visually reduce the volume, you need to choose darker shades of material for covering the walls. In this case, you can successfully use the brown color in its different colors - from light brown or beige to dark brown. In a large kitchen, wooden elements and decorations combined with a brick wall will look spectacular.
Small spaces visually expand using white. You can glue the walls with light gray wallpaper or paint in neutral, cool tones (light blue, light green). It is undesirable to use large designer jewelry that will overload a limited space.
By design and color scheme
In the decoration of the room should not use more than three primary colors. Multi-colored walls are suitable only for certain styles, but constantly being in such a space will be tiring. Read about color combinations in the kitchen in this article.
Care must be taken in bright, saturated colors. The abundance of red or orange will cause appetite, but also quickly tire. Modern design trends gravitate towards softer and lighter tones, neutral colors, and accents can be distinguished with the help of living plants in pots.
Increasingly, designers are paying attention to the abundance of white in the kitchen space. The snow-white set perfectly shades with a dark wall made of laminate or lining, and in combination with light curtains and metal lamps, you can get an original interior in the style of minimalism.
Brick, natural wood and heavy fixtures will help to design a kitchen in the loft style.
If the owners prefer the Art Nouveau style, to decorate the walls, you can try sticking wall murals with a city landscape, and decorate the furniture facades with metal fittings.
For apartments and cottages
For the arrangement of space in a private cottage or summer house in the country, natural materials are best suited - wood, brick, decorative stone. Finishing a small kitchen in a country house with plastic panels will cost cheap. It is not recommended to use gypsum plasterboard as the basis for the partitions, since in the houses of unstable residence the internal humidity level often changes, which leads to the destruction of GCR.
In an urban dwelling of a small area, it is better to use traditional tiles, and instead of wallpaper, cover the walls with ordinary paint. Vast spaces can be finished with any materials.
Depending on the budget
Budget constraints do not imply a complete rejection of interior upgrades. In this case, it is easiest to paint the walls or to cover them with washable wallpaper. Also, as a budget option, you can consider wall decoration with plastic panels, which will also cost inexpensively.
A well-chosen color and texture of the material will help to make a do-it-yourself repair in a conceived style at no particular cost.