I don’t like wallpapers! But it’s time to renew my walls so I had to come up with a better solution than simply put a layer paper on the wall and paint it. Somehow I thought spanning a cloth would look nice. After spending some time thinking of a neat solution to accomplish this idea I came up with some pretty nice ideas.
First planning phase
The first thing that came to my mind was some sort of strapping… or tying the cloth to wall. I imagined a piece of wood to the left and right mounted to the wall and screws or hooks in it to fix the cloth. The cloth itself has eyelets on the sides. A rope, or string, or cord of some kind is used to tie the cloth to the wall using a technique as used for shoe laces – threading the rope through the eyelets and laying it around the screws.
That was the basic idea. I still believe it’s going to look pretty nice. To keep it simple I will not use wood as a frame. Also, this will lead to a smaller profile – the cloth will be closer to the wall and will, hopefully, be on one level with the door frames.
Talking to a friend about this project he was thrilled about it and added his ideas. One of his ideas was to use a steel cable instead of multiples screws or hooks for the side fixture. At first I thought it’s an awesome idea but right now I’m afraid the rope spanning the cloth might slip down the steel cable. Anyway, it still is a viable alternative!
His next idea was a rather nerdy one. I explained him that I’d like to add lights behind cloth to have an alternative light source which is smooth and indirect – just the way I like the light to be. He simply noted that it would be cool to have a seven segment digital clock behind the cloth. Now it was me who was excited. Brilliant idea, why not making the nice things useful too? Thanks, Florian!
As I wasn’t very productive with my diploma thesis this day I started up inkscape to draw a quick sketch of how it could look like.
 wall covering first sketch big |
 wall covering - two sheets |
Well… it gives a glimpse of what I’m thinking of, eh? I will post a better picture with better proportions and an actual wall in the background.
Oh, I will test this idea in the hallway. If it proves to be a complete failure and a waste of time – it will do so during “small scale”. I learned this from the Mythbusters! 
Update
Ok, I made some measurements and another more realistic drawing in Inkscape. I’m not pretty good using this tool. Thus, it is sufficient to me to show me how things will look like… approximately.
 hallway with cloth - mockup |
 hallway with cloth over door |