Tapestries Regaining Popularity Among Home Buyers

A brand new home (or at least one new to you) can seem awfully big and bare when you first walk in. If your are upgrading into a bigger house you probably don’t have enough pictures and portraits to fill all of your freshly painted wall space. Tapestries can be the perfect way to turn a new house into a home - on the double!

Most people are familiar with the use of family pictures and framed prints to break up the monotony of blank walls. Framing can become expensive however, and for a comparable price you can usually get a wall hanging twice the size and with four times the depth of the average painting. This alone makes tapestries well worth the money.

Tapestries have a richness of color and texture you don’t get from a flat glossy print reproduction or a framed photo. Textiles in general are more inviting a medium than most others. You can not only see the color and the pattern, you can feel the design in the warp and weft of the weave. The heavy richness of tapestries allows for a deeper connection to the room as a whole and adds a beautiful touch to any home.

Tapestries as Focal Points

A well laid out room will have a focal point where the eye is irresistibly drawn, and which ties the entire room décor together. Tapestries are perfect for focal points as they often generate a feeling of motion and contained energy that can add punch to otherwise plain surroundings. You can choose from knights doing battle, a dragon breathing fire, a river running through a forest or a butterfly landing on a branch.

If you opt for a medieval tapestry you can accent with heavier baroque style furniture. The lighter pastels of many Renaissance pieces complement a French look, and carefully feathered Asian lines can bring an air of the exotic into an austere room. The bold colors and geometric patterns of many ethnic pieces can set off black furniture and glass coffee tables.

Once you have chosen the tapestry, you can consider your paint color. Tapestries stand out even more when hung on an accent wall, so consider choosing two colors for your room - a main one and a secondary one. You can pull in shades of additional colors from the furniture you will be using and coordinate floor coverings and window treatments as well for a well rounded, balanced effect.

Why Tapestries Are so Desirable

Tapestries have several advantages over prints of comparable shape and size. They require minimal care, offer a more tactile experience, add warmth and depth to a room, and can’t get knocked down or broken. In certain parts of the country this is a definite plus, as earthquakes can wreak havoc among the family portrait collection. Older houses with shaky walls are also a risk for pictures falling off every time a door slams.

The expense of a tapestry includes the tapestry cost itself, plus a hanging drapery rod with brackets to hold it. Some people prefer to frame or shadow box small tapestries to protect them. This is in contrast to having to mat and frame prints, portraits or paintings, with wood frames becoming more expensive by the year.