The feature wall has grown up. Where it once meant a single wall painted a bolder colour than the other three, today it means something far more ambitious: a full mural, a scene or a sweep of pattern that turns one wall into a work of art. Done well, a mural wallpaper is the most transformative thing you can do to a room, and it is exactly the sort of statement Masureel does so beautifully.
Its panoramic murals, in collections such as Holi, Chanderi, Salina and Mimicry, are genuine showpieces: richly detailed, painterly, and drawn from a deep archive of historical fabrics and contemporary art.
Chanderi, Peach (Serica)
Mimicry, Sunflower (Erosion)
The trick with a mural feature wall is restraint everywhere else. Give the mural a wall of its own, keep the surrounding walls quiet and the furniture simple, and let the room build itself around that single, arresting surface. A hallway, a dining room or the wall behind a bed are the natural candidates, the places where a moment of drama earns its keep.
Acharius, Rust (Erosion)
Byobu, Sunset (Traces)
"A mural turns a single wall into a work of art. It is the most transformative thing you can do to a room."
The Textured, Tactile Wall
If the mural is the loud statement, the textured wall is the quiet one, and it is having quite as much of a moment. The appetite now is for surface and depth: walls you half want to reach out and touch, warm and tactile rather than flat and printed. This is where Masureel's textured and grasscloth wallpaper comes into its own.
Oackly, Ivory (Rhapsody)
Oackly, Russet (Rhapsody)
Its grasscloth-effect Serica range reads, from across a room, as genuinely woven silk or fine linen, all subtle sheen and natural irregularity; the warm-neutral Amani collection wraps a room in soft, earthy calm. These are the textured papers to reach for when you want a space to feel rich and considered without a single busy motif, the perfect quiet backdrop to good furniture and soft light. A textured wallpaper of this kind flatters almost any room, but it is especially lovely in a study, a principal bedroom or a snug, where warmth and depth matter most.
Sugi, Hazel (Traces)
Lux, Kaki (Erosion)
"Masureel's grasscloth-effect papers read as woven silk from across the room. This is texture you can almost feel."
Why a Belgian House Does It Best
Both looks, the dramatic mural and the tactile weave, come down to a genuine understanding of material, and here Masureel has an inheritance few can match. This is a Belgian family whose history runs back to the sixteenth century in the Flanders fields, the historic heartland of European flax and linen, where for generations they grew flax, wove cloth and refined fabric long before they ever made wallpaper. When people talk about Belgian wallpaper having a certain depth and integrity, this is precisely what they mean: five centuries of intimacy with thread and weave, now turned to the wall.
That heritage shows in the substance of the thing. Masureel prints with water-based inks on non-woven grounds, without PVC or solvents, so the quality runs deeper than the surface. These are premium papers, mural and textured alike, so it is well worth ordering a sample and seeing the colour and texture properly in your own light before you commit. Whichever look you are after, the statement or the subtle, it rewards being chosen in the flesh.
For all the talk of feature walls, the best of them share one quality: they make you feel something the moment you walk in. A Masureel wall, mural or woven, does exactly that.
Ready to Build Your Own Feature Wall?
Browse the full Masureel collection at Wallpaper Sales, from panoramic murals to grasscloth-effect textures. Not sure which design and colourway will suit your room? Order a swatch first through our Sample Service before committing.
