The Walls Come Tumbling Down

In the sixties and seventies, it wasnt unusual to have ice-cream colours on the walls: PWD yellow outside, soft pinks and blues and greens inside. Overall, it looked less than the visual nightmare it promises to be today, if only because the houses were large, and the ceilings high. The colours also offered relief from the heat, with a certain refreshing quality: the Rajput palaces, after all, softened the harsh light through the use of coloured glass on windows. The 80s and 90s, in a whiplash reaction, played safe with white. It was antiseptic, bled of all colour, anonymous, even elegant. It helped show up paintings better, made furniture prominent, and was perfect for the objects displayed.

 

It was also boring: every home looked exactly the same, change a picture here, a view there. And dirty: white soiled fast, with spots and marks where the ponche-wali rested her arms daily, or the servants leaned their oily heads on walls.

White continues to reign in the market but there seems to be a marked disdain for it. And solid colours are no longer the answer: it would be too much like living in an ice-cream cone. But there are options, though its best to opt for any one effect, and not the usual Indian penchant for using them all together in the hope that something good might come of it.

Surface textures: Enough paint companies now provide you textured paints which, of course, are best for use in office corridors. But new roller-painting techniques combined with these paints can create interestingly textured effects on walls resembling uneven waves of colours for a simulated natural look. Best for walls with a lot of wear and tear, or for highlighting specific areas like corner beams, or niches, or the wall behind your beds headboard.

Use this effect with restraint, however: the offsetting walls must be pale-coloured and smooth, and furnishings should be bold without resorting to busy patterns. When used sparingly, it adds interest to interior architecture but used extensively, it resembles the mess a mixie-grinder pot looks like five seconds after putting in the ingredients for making chutney.

Motifs: Whats good for the American ambassadors dining room should be good enough for most. With the wealth of Indian design motifs, its a pity they show up so little in our homes. Stencilled motifs can generate visual stimulation in an area where paintings or other decoratives would prove far less successful. Ideally, these motifs should be small, and they should be repeated in an ordered pattern, but with a sense of austerity rather than plenty. A stencilled motif can be restricted to just one colour, or at most two, not more. And positioned where servants are not going to rub their hands as in corridor walls. White is a safe background colour, though a rough wash of a light colour seems to add to its appeal. In large halls where furniture isnt positioned against walls, Mughal motifs, such as irises, can be painted from the skirt up, with a pattern of leaves or flowers repeated along the higher walls. In Jodhpur, designer Clarissa Mitchell has painted strips along the upper walls where it meets the ceiling

to resemble the fluttering ends of shamianas or tents for a stunningly realistic effect.

Plaster of paris squiggles: In her last home, designer-entrepreneur Anita Lal watched the workmen leaven a wall with plaster of paris. Even as they worked, she and her daughter moved in with a length of wire each, using it to etch the extending branches of a tree on the wall. And before the plaster dried, they had coloured these sparsely with ordinary marking pens in gold and black, with a swish of a leaf here, a squiggle for a bird there. The drying plaster dulled the colour which, in any case, was sparingly used. But the result was a delightful abstract wall: very designer and very unique, and it proved fun to do. But are you up to it?

Vertical stripes: One of the toughest job you can land your painter with, and best with plastic emulsions, but bound to create a stunning effect. Vertical lines on walls, usually the base colour of the wall and a stronger one for effect, can immediately change the nature of the space and add height to a room (horizontal lines, on the other hand, make a room look awkward; funny how walls resemble humans on that count). And dont worry if you have a small room: it works, surprisingly, equally well there, though instead of doing the whole room in vertical stripes, painting one or two walls provides the better effect. It calls for meticulous work though: a painter either first pencils the lines and paints in the stripes, or else uses a strip created by combining two lengths of margin wood and paints between their nailed width.

Solid colours: If you like strong colours, you can decide to paint selected walls of the room in the colour of your choice, but be prepared for some opposition almost everyone will disagree with your taste. However, its a very good idea to do those walls in your house which have become dirty in a different, stronger colour. It will provide relief from the rest of the room, and will help you tide over a problem without having to get entire rooms painted. And you can change them at will too. Dont, however, paint each wall a different colour over different periods of time, or youll end up feeling as if youve been trapped in an Andy Warhol poster.

Murals: Indian homes, before the civilising effect of the British, almost always featured murals and frescos, and places like the Shekhawati region came to be known for them. However, the insipid English rid Indian WOGs of any such inclination. But the mural can be a delightful addition to a home, provided it does not take pride of place in the living room or bedroom. A mural, in the nature of a leafy garden, or an architectural feature, can create a trompe loeil effect, a sense of unbelieving that is best for verandahs or corridors, or a part of a study or an interesting part of a home. But do remember: copies of old masters painted on entire walls are as bad as the teary-eyed posters of moppets in formal drawing rooms.

Zany corners: Highlighting in the nineties funky style can be fun and adventurous, and there arent too many mistakes you can make. Provided, of course, that you restrain these effects to the most unexpected parts of a house. A low ceiling? Paint it black, with a golden sun, its rays streaking across in a lively pattern. A corridor ending abruptly? Paint it red and place a nice Rajasthani jharokha on it. A landing thats too small for using? Paint blue waves on the wall, place a few shells on the floor, and string a hammock across it for an instant holiday every time you cross the space. Uninteresting bathroom? Go to your nearest tile-maker or potter and ask for their broken tile waste (they sell it cheap by the sacks-full). Use these to replace more conventional tiles on the walls and suddenly you have a lively bathroom where spending time becomes a pleasure.