So: LACQUER. Elegant. Elusive. SHINY.
Aren’t they fantastic? Lacquered walls, Gentle Readers, are very “go big or go home.” Frankly, lacquered walls are so bold and bossy (is it still legal to use that word, or has the ban been successful?) that it’s shocking I don’t do them every day.
I mean, wow, right?! But lacquered walls are a commitment. If you’re thinking of taking the plunge, here are my thoughts.
WHY. Why would you do lacquered walls in the first place? Because you’re amazingly cool. Because simply painting a wall JUST ISN’T ENOUGH for you. Because you’re a maximalist. Because you have untamed children and you need walls you can hose down.
Ultimately, this may be one of those instances that calls for the snooty and generally useless retort, “If you have to ask, you just don’t get it.” I hate being snooty and useless, but really, this look appeals to you or it doesn’t.
WHEN. I say that you lacquer walls when you want to create a “wow” space. You want a little drama. It’s a special treatment, and it’s a lot of work, so you don’t see it everywhere. Shiny walls bounce light around, so if you have a dark and/or windowless space, lacquering walls is super effective.
HOW. From a design perspective, I prefer my lacquered walls to be in rich, saturated colors, on really smooth walls (more on that in a second).
Many designers use white lacquer walls to great effect. Victoria Hagan, for example:
[Please picture a lovely room with really glossy white walls. We had to remove the picture: I was accused of copyright infringement and was commanded to pay an exorbitant amount of money as a retroactive “licensing fee.” Extortion? Or just a new interpretation of the term, “cyber bully?”]
But I don’t know. There’s something Stanley Kubrickian about shiny white walls to me.
From the nuts-and-bolts perspective on HOW: prepping walls for lacquer is no joke. They have to be really, really smooth. Because, as we all know, shiny surfaces show every bump and ripple. (This is why most people use a flat finish on walls, especially in older houses: it hides imperfections.)
If prepping for lacquer is no joke, the actual application thereof is REALLY unfunny. It involves layer upon layer of paint, then sanding, then paint, sanding, and probably varnish at some point…in sum, you really shouldn’t try this yourself. (Nor should your regular painter if s/he’s never done it before.) Hire a team of professionals, and it will be money well spent. A GOOD lacquer job should look like glass. BAD will show brushstrokes, or worse, roller marks — that orange-peel effect we work so hard to avoid.
As a side note, you can cheat. Phillip Jeffries makes lacquer wallcovering. (They discontinued the lipstick red, tragically, but the navy and bronze are pretty great.) I used Schumacher’s faux shagreen wallcovering in black not so very long ago, which gave us a little shine and depth without requiring uber-perfect walls underneath:
What say you, Gentle Readers? Any lacquer successes or horror stories out there? Do tell!
Quoted most recently in The Washington Post and on Washingtonian.com, Annie Elliott is an expert in curated interiors, brilliant color palettes, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible. Which is not bossy. It’s helpful.