Which wall should be your accent wall? Choosing the right wall for a mural

Compare the shape of the wall with the shape of the image

Murals made up more than nine in ten of the wallpapers in our orders over the past year. Unlike a repeating pattern, a mural is fitted to the shape of your wall, so for most people this is the step that matters most.

Divide the width of your wall by its height. A wall 16 feet wide and 8 feet high has a ratio of 2. A narrow wall between two doors, 4 feet wide and 8 feet high, has a ratio of 0.5. Many landscape murals are wider than they are tall, so a long wall can show almost the whole scene, while a narrow wall shows a vertical slice of it.

You can see this in the preview on the product page. Enter your measurements and the image is scaled to cover the wall, with the parts that fall outside shown faded around it. Click and drag to choose which part you keep.

Kyoto Grace, Fog by Irina Chikati is a good example of a design that holds up on a narrow wall. On a wall 4 by 8 feet, the preview shows a single tree with white blossom and pale green leaves, and two cranes standing beneath it. It still reads as a complete picture, because the design repeats its trees and birds across its width. A long wall gives you the whole grove.

Treeline Horizon by Pamela Munger behaves differently. Its interest lies in a broad sky of painterly clouds above an ochre field and a dark green treeline. On a long wall of about 16 by 8 feet, the image is scaled to the width and part of its height falls outside the frame. Drag it one way and you keep more sky. Drag it the other and the field and treeline come into view. Put the same image on a narrow wall and you mostly get cloud, with a band of field and trees at the bottom. That can be beautiful too, as long as it is the effect you want.

If a design leans one way, the Mirror option flips it. With Kyoto Grace on a narrow wall, mirroring moves the cranes to the other side of the trunk, so you can turn them toward the room instead of into a corner.

For an awkwardly shaped wall, an all-over design is the easy route. Layered Blues has no single focal point. Its sweeping diagonal currents of indigo, cerulean and aqua look intentional wherever the crop falls.

Check where the detail sits

Most accent walls have something standing in front of them. Before you settle on a wall, look at where the design keeps its detail. Orchard Reverie gathers its trees and hills in the lower part of the image, which suits the space above a low daybed or a crib. Behind a tall sideboard, much of that scene would disappear. Kyoto Grace places its blossom canopy high, so the trees stay visible above a headboard, although a tall one may hide the cranes at their feet.

Measure the height of the furniture that will stand against the wall. If the part you love sits below the top of the sofa, choose another crop or a design that carries its detail higher.

When the accent wall should turn a corner

Sometimes the best wall is really two. A bed set into an alcove, a reading corner or a dining nook can look more complete when the design continues around the corner. In that case, add the widths of the walls together and order them as one mural, so the image runs on without a break. Enter the combined width in the preview, and make sure the corner does not fall in the middle of the part you like best.