How to Decorate a Tall Stair Wall

More wall decorating Q & A today, this time a tall stair wall.

This homeowner recently enclosed a half wall opening in the second floor above because of the sound transmission out to the rest of the house. (I did the same thing in my house, some years ago.)

She wants to know what to do on this tall stair wall and what to do on the lower wall portion too. She is going to remove the small framed prints there on the wall now.

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This wall has a slight curve at the bottom of the stair area, so we need to be mindful of that.

I have two options to share, one more of a gallery wall and the other has a simpler wall decor look.

What I am not recommending for this wall

This wall would almost be a nice accent wall, but there really isn’t a good place to stop and start any wallcovering or contrasting paint color.

I didn’t opt for a paneled wall look here because it didn’t look like a home that had a lot of moulding elsewhere. Sometimes I do applied moulding to create boxes where we can do wallcovering or just paint to match the wall for a paneled wall look. In that case, I would have painted it white to match the trim.

I would not have wanted to do a white paneled wall look the way the wall curves at the end and then turns the corner into the entry, unless it would have addressed the entry and that looked like just too much to do here.

I might have done this paneled look with the lower section, if the wall didn’t bleed up the wall above the stair in the top left corner, which creates a problem of where to end it. If that wall below the stair had not been so tall or wide, I might have done that as just a way to break up all the beige and to marry it to the stair more.

I know….it sounds like I’m overthinking it. Whenever I put a finish on a wall, I have to think about where it will start, where it will end and all the little transtions in between, along with the house overall the other walls too.

Otherwise, you end up with situations like this from an Airbnb we stayed in a few years ago. See how they just stopped the wallpaper on the wall above the opening there?

The wallpaper also dies on outside corner of the wall below that soffit, which is not ideal, as the paper could peel there easily at the corner.

I guarantee you, designers worth their stuff don’t transition materials like this.

Let’s just consider wall decor only here, to keep it simple. :-)

Option One - Gallery Wall Look

Now, this might start adding up ($$$) with all this art, but it is a big wall and she could do thrift store or FB marketplace shopping to get some oil paintings like this. I’ve found these on Perigold, just to give you an idea of what would work here.

I played off the green accent color I see there in the room for a color inspiration.

I like the idea of doing the gallery in the upper wall space, since it is larger and then doing one single, vertical piece below the stair. That vertical piece is 31.5” W x 41.5” H.

BTW, the middle piece in the upper section comes in lots of sizes, but I was considering the 30” w x 45” h version for this layout.

I have all these linked below so you can peruse the art I found.

Option Two - Simple, Larger Scaled Wall Decor

I went with something larger scaled and light looking for the upper portion of the wall here. This copper wire wall sculptures are subtle but do provide some interest. The large one is 48” diam and the smaller is 36” diam.

These would probably be easier to hang than a gallery wall. :-)

Here’s another version of this with some of the gallery wall art on the lower section with the light sculpture pieces above.

Keep in mind, I’m estimating the scale of these pieces here on the wall for these mock ups. I can do this pretty well, since I have been doing this so long….. but remember to check your own dimensions. Also remember, colors online aren’t always how they look in real life. (Thanks for reading this PSA.:-)

I have lots more of these coming in this series, so if I haven’t done yours yet, I will get to it!

In the meantime, here are some more stair wall decorating Q&A’s!

Shop the wall decor, below!

This blogpost was thoughtfully written by me, Carla Aston, and not by AI, ghostwriters, or guest posters.