Options for wall drapery with fabric and the sequence of work, the choice of canvas for decorating the surface, the positive aspects of using textiles in the interior of the room. Wall drapery with fabric is a seamless covering of surfaces with fabrics of different color, composition and appearance, creating a unique design interior design. In a modern interior, this decor is synonymous with the concept of "high style". All information on the use of textiles in decoration is given below.
Advantages and disadvantages of fabric wall drapery
The positive aspects of covering the walls with fabric are clearly visible if materials specially designed for these purposes are used for drapery:
- Walls decorated with fabric create a calm and comfortable environment in the room. The canvas softens the bright light from the lamps and the texture of the partition cover.
- The canvas stretched over the slats does not require leveling the base surface. The fabric will hide all defects.
- For drapery, fabrics are used that are impregnated with special means that are not afraid of ultraviolet radiation and stains.
- The fabric gives the wall a special chic. Walls decorated with fabric look good in any style of decor.
- A special canvas for walls calmly transfers mechanical stress and almost does not shrink.
- Walls draped with fabric have good heat and sound insulation, which is created due to the guaranteed gap between the canvas and the base surface.
- On the market there is a large selection of textiles of various textures and colors for rooms with any functional purpose.
- In the folds of the textiles, slight damages and contamination of the fabric are invisible.
- In the case of fastening the fabric using frame technology, the fabric is easy to clean and quickly removed for washing.
- If you use a wide fabric, the number of seams is reduced, they are not conspicuous.
- Natural fabrics create a breathable finish.
- During finishing work, a lot of debris is not generated.
Wall drapery with fabric also has its drawbacks:
- The fabric collects dust well, which affects the microclimate of the room.
- Textile fabric is short-lived and quickly loses its attractive appearance, so repairs often have to be done in a room with fabric-covered walls.
- Buyers are sometimes discouraged by the high cost of canvas, which is still cheaper than wood panels.
- Mounting fabric on a lintel is more difficult than gluing wallpaper.
- The coating absorbs odors well, it is not recommended to install it in the kitchen and smoking rooms.
- Fabrics react unpredictably to cleaning agents and detergents.
Choosing a fabric for wall hangings
In finishing works, it is best to use synthetic fabrics, they are easier to assemble, easy to use. The artificial cloth is hypoallergenic, holds its shape well, is wear-resistant, does not shrink after washing, and is not afraid of ultraviolet radiation.
The best option is polyester, polyamide, polyacryl. It is recommended to use synthetic fabrics when it is planned not to peel the surface, but to make light drapery. Also, artificial fabrics impregnated with a moisture-repellent compound are used to create the interior of walls with drapery in damp rooms.
Natural materials include jacquard, sisal, jute, wool. Other types of textiles have serious disadvantages. Cotton shrinks after washing, the size may decrease by 5-7 cm per meter of linen. Flax shrinks even more, moreover, it sheds heavily. Silk has a very short lifespan; not all stains can be removed after washing.
To cover the walls, you can use ordinary furniture fabric, it was originally intended for any finishing work. This material is impregnated with protective agents and is difficult to damage.
If the fabric is planned to be glued, then the best option would be a dense canvas - suede and velor. Tapestry and velvet also have good properties. The selected fabric should not stretch, such material will sag in the future. For soundproofing premises, use a heavy canvas - jacquard or textiles on a backing. You can also take seamless material for wall decoration, which is used to create stretch ceilings.
Lovers of grace can do the wall hangings with their own hands in popular classic styles:
- Thin flowing fabrics and heavy fleecy are used to decorate the room in the Byzantine style.
- Woolen, silk, cotton fabrics with geometric patterns or ornaments of the heraldic type are characteristic of the Romanesque style.
- Woolen fabrics or leather printed with crescent moon, stars, etc. are used in the Gothic style.
- Dark blue or rose red velvet on the walls and furniture creates a Baroque style.
- Pastel-colored silk with a curl pattern is characteristic of the Rococo style.
- The Russian style is distinguished by the decoration of walls, windows, doors and furniture in one material.
The material is best selected from large building supplies stores with experienced vendors. When buying, they will be able to give important information about the product, for example, how sunlight affects the fabric, whether there is a risk of burnout, the presence of protective impregnations and reinforcements on the back of the material. All of these characteristics affect the life of the coating.
In all cases, be sure to check the fabric for shrinkage and pre-sew the canvas to the entire wall with a small margin in all directions. The work is carried out as follows:
- Soak a small piece of cloth in water and check its size after drying. If its dimensions have changed a lot, you will have to wet and dry the entire fabric. After such a procedure, it will not shrink on the wall. With a slight shrinkage, it can not be washed, it will help to stretch the fabric on the wall after final fixing.
- Cut strips from fabric blanks, the length of which is equal to the height of the wall plus 10-15 cm.
- Sew a canvas for each wall from the cuts with a margin of 20 cm in width. Sew the parts with a double linen seam. If decal is planned, roll the fabric into a roll.
Cloth wall drapery technology
You can upholster the wall with a cloth in three ways: by pulling under the rail, on the rail and gluing. At first glance, the work seems difficult, but in reality it is not much different from gluing wallpaper.
Tension of the web on the rail
Fill up all large defects on the wall, but you should not level the surface in one plane. On the wall above the floor and below the ceiling, draw lines in a horizontal plane, which will be the base for attaching the rails. Make sure that the distance between the lines is the same around the entire perimeter of the room.
Fix the 20x20 or 20x30 mm strips to the wall with self-tapping screws or dowels, the fixing method depends on the material of the partition. If you plan to insulate or soundproof the room, the slats are mounted on top of the wall. Another option - the slats are recessed, leaving 1-2 mm outside. When fastening, place the front surfaces of the rails in the same vertical plane.
To create a skeleton, wooden, metal and plastic slats are suitable. It is convenient to use special profiles with ready-made fasteners, they allow you to dismantle the canvas many times without damage. To create a frame of arbitrary geometric shape, it is recommended to use a PVC profile.
With planks, beat around the perimeter of the holes of sockets, switches, other accessories, as well as openings of doors and windows. After finishing the main surface of the wall with a cloth, cut the canvas above the openings with scissors, grease the strips around the openings and the fabric itself with glue and leave for 5 minutes. Use a narrow spatula to push the cloth between the outlet and the wall and cut off the excess fabric.
After tension, there will be a free space between the fabric and the wall, which is filled with insulation or sound insulator. The insulation is fixed to the wall immediately after the installation of the battens. It uses thin foam, polyurethane foam, felt and other materials. The way of fixing the insulation to the wall is with construction glue. When working with the material, make sure that the glue does not appear on the outside of the material, later it may appear on the fabric. If necessary, cover the glue that has escaped from the top with finishing tape.
The technology of attaching the fabric to the wall depends on the way of drapery - in the form of a smooth surface or folds. If you decide to do a smooth wall drapery with a cloth with your own hands, adhere to the following sequence of work:
- Fasten the fabric in the corner of the room to the rail with a stud.
- Stretch the canvas towards the opposite corner of the wall and fasten to the slats, first above the ceiling, then above the floor and along the edges of the walls.
- Stretch the fabric evenly when attaching and be careful not to wrinkle the fabric. Place the fasteners as close to the ceiling as possible in order to later cover with decorative decoration.
Drape a wall with a pleated fabric as follows:
- Cut the fabric to the desired length from the workpiece. The canvas should be longer than the wall, the greater the difference, the more voluminous the drapery.
- Hem the edges of the material, cut off the excess threads.
- Select the type of curtain tape, the shape of the folds depends on it. Sew the tape along the edges of the fabric from the wrong side.
- Iron the canvas thoroughly.
- Form even folds on it. The final length of the pleated cover must match the length of the wall.
- Fasten the fabric to the slats on the wall with special fasteners.
- Install decorative elements on the slats to mask the fastening hardware.
Tensioning the fabric under the rail
For drapery, you will need a canvas, the dimensions of which are 10-15 cm larger than the size of the wall. The fabric is fixed on the wall as follows:
- Secure the fabric at the top of the wall with a stud, pull it along the wall and secure again in the opposite corner.
- On the wall, on top of the canvas, install and fix the decorative strip. The complexity of the operation lies in the fact that you should simultaneously pull the canvas and fasten the rail, so the work is done together.
- Fix the rail to the wall with self-tapping screws with a decorative or countersunk head. Cover the top of the cap with decorative plugs. The distance between the screws is 20-30 cm.
- After fixing the canvas to the walls, cut off the excess parts with scissors, leaving a margin of 1-2 cm. Bend these pieces in half and hide under the rail, which prevents the material from fraying during operation.
- Decorate the slats under the ceiling with a decorative frame, above the floor with a plinth.
Bonding fabric to the wall
You can glue the fabric to any surface, but the quality of the coating will depend on the condition of the wall, so it should be prepared in advance.
Stone walls are cleaned of dust and dirt and washed with soap. It is not recommended to wash drywall surfaces. It is better to putty or paint the defects. Drown the heads of the fasteners by 1 mm, paint over with oil paint, cover with putty and sand after drying. Seal the gaps between the panels with a serpentine reinforcing tape.
Cover the board walls with fiberboard and process in the same way as drywall boards. Rinse the rust on the walls with a special liquid and paste the wallpaper.
If the wall is covered with oil paint and it adheres well, the coating may not be removed, but washed with soap and water. Wash enamelled surfaces with water and sandpaper. Clean walls covered with lime paints completely with water and a spatula. Remove foil and roll materials from the wall completely.
Uneven walls must be aligned in one plane. For this, the surface is primed, then the first layer of putty is applied and large irregularities are eliminated. A day later, a second finishing layer of putty is applied, followed by smoothing. After drying, the surface is treated with fine sandpaper.
Before applying the glue, prime the wall with special primers or a weak solution of wallpaper glue. The primer holds dust and gerbils together and improves the quality of the adhesive bond.
If you plan to cover the wall with a fabric not up to the ceiling, it is recommended to mark the position of the upper part of the fabric on the wall. To do this, on the wall, at a given distance from the ceiling, draw a horizontal line with a pencil. It is better to glue the canvas together: one worker must constantly hold the canvas on the wall while the second levels it.
The fabric is glued with furniture glue, flour paste, Bustilat mastic. The technology of gluing with furniture glue differs from other options due to its properties - it hardens under the influence of high temperature, so you need a powerful iron to work.
The sequence of gluing fabric on furniture glue is as follows:
- Apply the adhesive solution to the wall. In its normal state, furniture glue does not freeze for a long time, so you can spread the wall completely.
- Start work from the corner of the room. For convenience, nail the canvas with a nail at the top of the wall.
- Pull the canvas evenly over the wall and iron it with a heated iron. First, work a strip 0.5 m high at the top of the wall from one corner to the next, so it is easier to hold the canvas. Under the influence of high temperature, the glue will melt and be absorbed into the material. Iron the fabric several times.
- Having reached the opposite wall, you should go back and repeat the operation: take a strip 0.5 m high below the glued one and, ironing it with an iron, glue it to the wall. In this way, glue all the material.
- After pasting the entire surface, remove excess parts of the blade with a sharp knife.
The technology of gluing fabric with fast-setting adhesives is different:
- Roll the finished canvases sewn to the size of the wall into rolls, for each wall - its own.
- Apply to the wall, in the corner of the room, a layer of glue - 10 cm wide, from ceiling to floor.
- Roll out a little roll and attach the fabric to the glued strip, leaving a margin of canvas on all sides of the wall.
- Squeeze the air out from under the fabric with a roller.
- While one person holds the roll, the other applies the adhesive in a 10 cm strip under the ceiling.
- Roll out a roll and glue the fabric at the top of the wall.
- Temporarily fix the top and side of the cut to the wall with slats, which are fixed to the wall with small nails at intervals of 10-30 cm. The fasteners are hammered in half.
- After the side and top sections have dried, glue the second side of the fabric and then the bottom.
- Wait for the glue to completely harden and remove the temporary strips. Hold the bar with your hands when removing nails.
- Cut off excess material. Mask the edges of the fabric with decorative trims and skirting boards.
When gluing the fabric, pay attention to the following points:
- The fabric should not be stretched, it should lie freely on the surface. If the canvas is energized, the glue will not be able to keep the fabric in this state, because during heating it remains liquid and folds will appear on the wall.
- The edges of the canvas may fray over time. To prevent the drapery from deteriorating, apply a layer of glue around the perimeter of the wall slightly thicker than in the middle. It will saturate the fabric well and strengthen the edges of the fabric.
- After gluing, carefully inspect the wall for air bubbles. If such formations appear, pierce them with a needle and smooth the area with a hot iron.
- The opportunity to fix defects on the glued fabric lasts three days. During this period of time, the glue melts after heating and the fabric can be re-glued. After a few days, the glue hardens completely, and the fabric cannot be removed without damage.
- During operation, the room should have a temperature of no more than +18 degrees and a humidity of no more than 80%.
- Holes in the fabric for sockets and other electrical fittings are made after the fabric is finally attached to the wall.
- Small areas of light tissue can be fixed with adhesive tape.
- It is recommended to use a large size fabric to cover the walls in one piece without stitching.
- Buy canvas with a margin. The fabric can later come in handy for restoration work.
How to attach fabric to walls - watch the video:
Wall drapery with fabric allows you to achieve individualism in the design of the room. A huge amount of coloring and texture of textiles allows you to create an unusual room interior and excludes the possibility of meeting the same decor with friends and neighbors.
