My house, built in 2003, has purple feature walls in the dining room and 2 bedrooms and green feature walls in 1 bedroom and 2 living areas. That was the fashion then. Recently I decided it's time for an update as the feature walls seem to be absorbing all the light and making the house very dark. So far I've undercoated 2 of the feature walls and what a difference it makes! The rooms are much lighter and now I have to decide on whether to add a lighter colour as feature walls or paint them the same colour as the rest of the room.

Hi jdublya, happy new year and sorry about the late reply! I ended up doing the safe / lazy thing... left the floor untouched and painted a feature wall deep grey, as well as having two-toned grey curtains to both the sliding doors, and a dark grey area rug. The open plan living / dining gets lots of light, so it's still bright even with all the dark greys. We've paired it with mismatched sofas in light grey and brown, and sage green throws. Overall, it's still a "warm" look and not the cool Scandi look I would have preferred, but it's cozy and the greys have really calmed down the red. It's a lot more to my taste now than the show room furniture was. Bits of the floor finish are coming off though, I think (where the kitchen island stools have been dragged over the years by the past occupant), so in time I will get the opportunity to re-do the floor and it'll no longer be red!

The problem is that we have no idea of the rest of your house , whether it is ultra-modern or classical or colourful or eclectic or . . . . . . . With the limited info , personally I'd go for a burgundy and ( narrower ) gold striped wallpaper , or possibly cream and bright sunshine yellow stripes , but then everyone is different . I wouldn't go with anything 'organic' looking , including grass or flax looks , fake timber or any wallpaper along those veins . The grid wall idea isn't a favourite either , but depending on ceiling height , how about doing the lower 1/2 to 2/3rds of the wall like that , then vertical striped wallpaper above that ? Breaks it and makes even more of a feature IMO .

110yo plain red bricks. In my experience, I had a brick wall in a kitchen in the past and every week the'd be dust on the skirting board. Much more than skirting boards that had plaster on. I sealed them with PVA, and that certainly reduced it a lot.