Japandi wall decor: texture, calm and handmade pieces

Japandi rooms are easy to recognise and surprisingly hard to finish: pale wood, linen, a low sofa, and then a wall that either stays bare and cold or fills up with the wrong things. Good Japandi wall decor is mostly about restraint, and about texture doing the work that colour and pattern do elsewhere. Here we explain what Japandi and wabi-sabi mean in plain words, the palette and textures that suit them, and how we at Nyra Atelier think about handmade textile pieces in a room built on calm.

Japandi and wabi-sabi in plain words

How they differ

Japandi is an interior style. The name joins Japanese and Scandinavian, and the look joins them too: the clean lines and restraint of Japanese interiors with the warmth and practicality of Scandinavian homes. Low furniture, natural wood, few objects, everything with a purpose.

Wabi-sabi is older and broader. It is a Japanese way of seeing beauty in things that are imperfect, incomplete and marked by time: a bowl with an uneven rim, a wooden table worn by use, a wall where the plaster shows the hand that spread it. It is a philosophy rather than a style, and you can apply it in many kinds of room.

What they share

Both prefer natural materials to synthetic ones, quiet colour to strong contrast, and one meaningful object to ten decorative ones. Japandi borrows wabi-sabi's love of the handmade and the irregular; wabi-sabi gives Japandi rooms the warmth that stops them looking like a showroom.

The Japandi palette

Warm neutrals: cream, sand, taupe and soft brown

The base is warm white, cream and sand on the walls, pale oak and linen in the furniture, then deeper notes of taupe, caramel and soft brown in the details. Black appears in small doses, a lamp base or a frame, never as a large surface. Wall decor in this palette should sit one or two steps darker than the wall, so it reads as texture rather than as a hole in the wall.

What to avoid: sharp contrast and cold grey

Bright white with black, or cool blue-grey walls, push a Japandi room towards a colder minimalism. If your walls are already a cool grey, warm the room through the wall decor: earthy fibres, wood and natural rope do more than another grey print.

Texture without clutter

Handmade irregularity

Wabi-sabi asks for the trace of the hand, and handmade textile shows it more honestly than almost any other material. A good example from our own portfolio is Refrain, a past work now in a private collection: Sónia Bizarro wove sixteen squares of macramé cord across a hand-painted canvas, in columns from soft taupe to deep earth brown. Each square repeats the same gesture, so the small variations of line and texture become the point of the piece.

Low-relief surfaces

Japandi texture is felt more than seen. Choose pieces with low relief that keep close to the wall rather than heavy sculptural work that projects into the room. Suspenso Terra, for all its 170 cm width, is only about 3 cm deep: a large piece that still sits quietly on the wall.

Visible stitches and knots

Up close, the construction should be legible: the knots where cord meets branch, the rows of a stitch, the place where one colour changes to the next. That is what rewards a second look in a room with so little else to look at.

Let side light do the work

Texture needs shadow to show. Light falling across a piece from a window at one side, or from a low lamp with a warm bulb, picks out every knot and stitch; a spotlight aimed straight at it flattens them. In a Japandi room, place the piece where daylight grazes the wall rather than where it lands on it full on, which also keeps natural fibres out of direct sun.

Negative space and fewer pieces

In a Japandi room, the empty wall around a piece is part of the composition. As a guide, we would rather see one larger piece with generous space around it than three smaller ones filling the wall. On a 3 m wall, for example, a 170 cm piece leaves about 65 cm of plain wall on each side, which is plenty. A gallery wall is the hardest thing to make look Japandi; if you love one, limit it to two or three pieces in the same palette with wide, even gaps.

Leave at least one wall in the room completely bare. It gives the eye somewhere to rest and makes the piece you did hang look chosen rather than added.

Three rooms

Living room, above the sofa

Japandi sofas tend to be low and deep, which lowers the whole wall. Hang the piece lower than feels natural, keeping a modest gap above the sofa back, and favour a wide, horizontal piece that echoes the long, low line of the sofa. Our guide to what to hang above a sofa has the measurements.

Bedroom, the headboard wall

A platform bed with no headboard is classic Japandi, and the wall above it can stand in for one. A wide textile piece in soft brown and taupe frames the bed without adding furniture. Keep the bedside tables simple and the lamps low; what to hang above a bed explains the sizes.

Entrance

An entrance is where one carefully chosen small piece earns its place: above a narrow oak console with a single ceramic bowl for keys, and nothing else. A canvas about 50 to 60 cm wide is usually enough. Hang it where it is seen from the front door, so it is the first thing that greets you.

Pieces that suit Japandi wall decor

Suspenso Terra is the piece we would choose for a Japandi room. Its three draped panels move from deep brown through caramel to soft taupe and grey on a natural wooden branch, in an 80% cotton cord, and its earthy tones sit easily with linen, oak, plaster and stone. At about 170 cm wide, it suits a large wall above a low sofa or a platform bed.

Cadence is a different case, and we would rather be honest about it. Its rows of red, mustard, olive green and dusty pink wool on a clean white ground are warm and minimal, but they are not neutral. In a strict Japandi palette it works as the single accent in the room, with plenty of bare wall around it, for example above a pale oak console in an entrance. If you want colour throughout, it is more at home in a warmer, Mediterranean scheme.

Both pieces are one of a kind and available at the time of writing. You can see all our wall art and decorative objects in the shop.

Mistakes that make Japandi look rustic or cold

• Too many raw textures at once. Jute rug, rough wood, dried grasses, a woven basket and a macramé piece in the same corner tip the room into rustic. Let one rough texture lead and keep the rest smooth.
• Everything the same beige. Without a darker note, a Japandi room goes flat. A soft brown or caramel in the wall piece gives the palette depth.
• Cold grey walls with cold grey art. Warm the room through materials: wood, wool, plaster.
• Hanging too high. Low furniture needs low art. A piece floating high above a low sofa breaks the horizontal calm of the room.
• Glossy frames and glass. Shine works against the matt, tactile surfaces Japandi relies on. Textile needs no glass at all.
• Filling every wall. Negative space is part of the style. Leave a wall bare.

Frequently asked questions

What is Japandi style?

An interior style that blends the clean lines and restraint of Japanese design with the warmth and practicality of Scandinavian homes: natural materials, low furniture, a warm neutral palette and few, well-chosen objects.

What is the difference between Japandi and wabi-sabi?

Japandi is a decorating style. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection, irregularity and the marks of time. Japandi rooms often borrow wabi-sabi's love of handmade, slightly irregular objects.

What colours work for Japandi wall art?

Warm neutrals: cream, sand, taupe, caramel and soft brown, with black only in small touches. Choose a piece one or two shades darker than the wall so its texture shows.

Can textile art work in a Japandi room?

Yes. Texture is at the heart of Japandi, and natural fibres such as wool and cotton bring warmth to a room of wood and plaster. Choose low-relief pieces in a warm neutral palette and give them space.

How do I keep wabi-sabi texture from looking too rustic?

Let one rough texture lead in each part of the room, keep the surfaces around it smooth and matt, and leave generous empty wall around the piece.