Manufacturing of wall niches, their types, properties and installation technologies, design decoration with decorative materials and lighting. A niche in the wall is a special cavity that can have different shapes and purposes. In small rooms it creates additional space, and in spacious rooms it decorates the interior as a decorative element. The device of a niche is not a complicated process, when its creation is envisaged even at the design stage of the house. If the room is already in operation, then all the problems with the manufacture of such a structure will be associated with the material that was used in the construction of the walls.
The main types of niches in the wall
Niches can be vertical and horizontal, functional and decorative. Their shape and purpose depends directly on the solution that this wall element must fulfill.
Horizontal niches are built in rooms where low elongated furniture is located, for example, a bed. If the wall of the room is short, making a horizontal niche on it will visually increase the length of the structure.
When planning the location of a niche near bulky furniture, a window or a door, it is better to make it vertical. In this case, such a wall element will visually increase the height of the room.
In functional terms, the device of a niche in the wall helps to mask the flaws in the layout of the room associated with the placement of utilities: heating radiators, pipes, metering devices, etc. In the room, a niche can serve as a rack, a wardrobe and become a place for storing various things. Wall recesses are used to accommodate pieces of furniture, equipment and household appliances. Quite often, a bar is located in a niche.
Decorative niches can completely transform the room, standing out against the background of the wall with colors and focusing on themselves with the help of the built-in lighting system. These recesses are used to store beautiful vases, photographs, figurines and various souvenirs. If the size of the niche allows, you can place an aquarium or small flower pots in it. Decorative niches visually increase the size of the room, giving it a modern or gothic aesthetic.
Wall niche technology
Most often, niches are made in brick walls and plasterboard structures. Making recesses in solid walls is very problematic, since this requires a special permit from the building technical supervision services. Usually it is extremely difficult to get it, since such an event violates the bearing capacity of the wall. But for the device of a niche, you can use another brick wall located along the floor slabs with a lower load. However, it is much easier to make a recess of any size in a plasterboard wall or in a frame cladding structure. Permission is not required for this, but the necessary calculations will have to be done. Consider both options for making a niche.
Niche in the plasterboard wall
Before making a niche in the wall with your own hands, you need to display the future structure in the drawing and calculate its dimensions, taking into account the electrical wiring and all technological gaps. Depending on the humidity of the room and the shape of the future niche, you need to determine the type of drywall. The wall gypsum board is 12.5 mm thick, the arched one is 6.5 mm thick, and the ceiling one is 9.5 mm thick. Moisture resistant sheets are always green, the rest are gray.
For work, you will need consumables and tools: galvanized metal profiles, gypsum boards and perforated corners, screws, primer and plaster putty, building level, metal scissors and a knife, screwdriver, dowels and a perforator.
From the drawing to the wall in size, it is necessary to transfer the plan of the entire structure, taking into account the niche and the designation of the location of its shelves, figured elements and lamps. The wall must be flat and clean. If necessary, it can be plastered.
First, the frame of the future structure is made. The profile guides must be fixed along the marking lines using dowels and a perforator. Fastener spacing - no more than 400 mm. On the curved sections of the frame, the profiles must be cut along their shelves and bent before fastening along the required radii.
After fixing the guide profiles of the future design, you need to add volume. To do this, step back from the wall to a distance of the depth of the niche, and then fix the horizontal profiles on the floor and ceiling in accordance with it. After that, they should be connected with vertical posts.
To form a niche contour in the frame, it is necessary to cut pieces of the profile of the required dimensions, bend their ends at an angle of 90 degrees and fix them on the racks and the wall. The fastening of the profiles to each other is carried out with small self-tapping screws "bug" using a screwdriver.
The lighting of a niche in a plasterboard wall should be taken care of even at the stage of making the frame. It is necessary to lay electrical wiring to it in special plastic boxes. They look quite decent, so cutting out a groove in the wall for the cable is not required.
The front part of the resulting frame and its fastening to the wall should be reinforced with stiffeners. They must be fastened from the racks at equal distances along the length.
Sheathing the frame of a niche with plasterboard sheets should begin with its curved elements, if any. After cutting the sheet, they must be immediately tried on to the installation sites. It is advisable to sheathe the slopes of the niche and its front part with solid sheets of drywall, if the dimensions of the structure allow. In this case, she will have great rigidity. Docking the gypsum board near the corners of the niche must not be allowed. Fastening of plasterboard sheathing sheets to the metal frame is carried out with self-tapping screws 25 mm using a screwdriver. The screw heads should be slightly recessed into the thickness of the material.
After finishing the cladding at the outer corners of the niche, fix the perforated profile, coat the joints of the gypsum plasterboard sheets with putty and stick a reinforcing tape-serpyanka on them. Then apply plaster mortar over the tape and the perforated corner and level it with a spatula. The recesses from the caps of the sheet fasteners must also be sealed with putty. After the solution has dried, the treated surfaces must be sanded with fine emery paper. The niche is now completely ready for decoration.
Important! All operations for the installation of frame profiles must be controlled with a building level and a square. Only in this case it is possible to obtain a niche of the correct geometric shape.
Niche in the brick wall
A brick niche can be rectangular or arched. In the second case, a kind of "compass" is used to mark it on the wall, consisting of a thread with a tied pencil. When planning the work, the size of the intended recess should be increased by 3-5%, leaving room for decorative finishing. The thickness of the brick wall for arranging a niche should not be less than 400 mm.
Before making a niche in a brick wall, you need to prepare a grinder with a stone disc, a perforator, a hammer and a chisel. In addition, you need to have protective equipment: gloves, special glasses and a respirator. This is important, since the dismantling of the masonry is always accompanied by an abundance of dust and flying debris.
The device of a niche in a brick wall should begin with making a recess for the upper lintel, which will hold the top of the wall when dismantling the masonry of its lower part. The length of the lintel will be greater than the width of the niche, therefore, the upper horizontal recess must be made with a margin of 300 mm relative to the transverse dimension of the lower planned cavity.
In the chosen place of the wall, you should mark the contour of the niche and knock down the plaster at the location of the lintel. When the rows of masonry become visible, you need to adjust the height of the outline, taking into account the upper support beam. The top row of masonry to be removed should consist of bricks placed with a spoon. If this is not the case according to the marking, the line of the upper recess for the lintel must be lowered a row lower.
After that, using a hammer of a perforator and a chisel, you should prepare a strobe for the jumper. Is the masonry removed horizontally to a depth? bricks and a height of 150 mm. The fragments of bricks from the recess must be removed after the end of the work.
After that, a mixture of cement, sand and crushed stone should be prepared in a 1: 1: 2 ratio and formwork should be installed on the made recess.
You will need a couple of boards for it. One of them needs to close half of the groove in height and nail it to the wall. Now you need five reinforcing rods with a diameter of 10 mm. They must be laid on a centimeter layer of concrete, previously poured into the formwork after fixing the board. The second board should be stuffed higher than the first, leaving a gap between them to fill the space with concrete. After a week, the concrete will gain strength, after which you can continue to work.
It is convenient to make the main recess for a niche in the wall with a "grinder" with a circle over the stone. The lateral lines of the outlined contour must be cut to a depth of 120 mm, and then remove the bricks from the masonry in rows from top to bottom with a hammer and chisel.
At the end of this process, the verticality of the walls of the niche must be checked with a level, leveled with a putty and its surface must be sanded, and then proceed to finishing.
Features of the design of niches in the wall
Niche design largely depends on its purpose, but artistic taste in this business is also important. The decoration of this element of the interior can be done with various materials. These include:
- Artificial or natural stone … A great option for decorating niches located in kitchens or living rooms. The convenience of this design is ease of cleaning. In order not to complicate it, it is better to revet the horizontal planes of a niche with a stone with a less "torn" surface than its walls.
- Laminate … It is more suitable for wall niches in sleeping rooms. This material is used to paste over the slopes and shelves of the niche located at the head of the bed. Its advantage is that backlighting, which is an invariable attribute of such a niche, will not emphasize the flaws made when leveling surfaces. In addition, the installation of laminated boards on the walls is not at all complicated, and anyone can handle it.
- Upholstery with fabric … Such a niche design will bring comfort and coziness to the room. Fabric drapery is also good for decorating the headboard of a berth.
- 3D panels or tiles … This material is truly versatile, as it can be made from plaster, metal, leather and even carved wood. With its help, niches are formed in rooms of absolutely any purpose. There can be only one limitation in the use of 3D panels - the dimensions of the recesses in the wall. If the niches are small, such a finish will become somewhat problematic.
- Painting finishing … It is also universal and consists in filling a niche with its subsequent staining. When decorating a recess in this way, you must choose a moisture-resistant paint. This will make the niche easier to operate and clean.
- Decorative plaster … With its help, any structure and relief can be formed on the surface of a niche. The material has a huge number of varieties and is suitable for the design of a niche in the wall of a room for any purpose.
Today, wall niches are not just a cavity, but an unusual space that should harmoniously fit into the style of the interior. Therefore, when making such a recess, it is recommended to adhere to some rules:
- Niches are usually used as a corrective functional or decorative element in rooms that have technical flaws and layout flaws that require masking.
- It is important to observe reasonable proportions of niche sizes in relation to the dimensions of the rooms.
- The color of the interior of the niche should be lighter than its background, otherwise you may get the feeling that there is a hole in the wall. The vaults of the notches can be made one tone darker in relation to the main one.
- If the coatings in the design of a niche have a different texture, their compatibility must be taken into account.
- Mirrors help to visually expand the interior of the recess.
A very important element in the design of a decorative niche in the wall is its illumination. Most often, it is side, top and is implemented using spotlights or LED strip, which fits into pre-prepared recesses. They create not only additional soft lighting of the room, but also allow transforming its space, giving the room a special mystery.
For example, a narrow corridor can be visually expanded if low horizontally extended niches with rear mirrored walls and upper LED illumination are placed on both sides of it. The effect will be overwhelming.
How to make a niche in the wall - watch the video:
You don't have to be a builder to create an original niche. If there is a desire and imagination, it is enough to choose everything you need for work, and then decisively update the boring old design without much financial investment.
