An accent wall goes wrong when the wall was chosen because it was easy rather than because it was the one people look at.
Which wall
The one the room already points at — behind the bed, behind the sofa, the wall with the fireplace. If a wall has no feature and no furniture against it, colour will not give it one.
Which colour
Something in the same family as the other walls, two or three shades deeper, works almost every time. Colours from a different family read as a mistake rather than a decision.
The wall has to be good
Deeper colours show every ripple, every patch and every nail pop. An accent wall needs better preparation than the three plain walls around it, not less.
Sheen matters more here
Dark colours in a flat finish look expensive and mark permanently. In eggshell they clean but show the surface. On a wall people will touch, take the eggshell.
The practical argument
One wall of a strong colour costs almost nothing extra and is easy to undo. It is the cheapest way to find out whether you like living with a colour before committing a whole room to it.
Interior painting covers the work. Finished rooms are on our Facebook page.
