Are you tired of your braai room? Did the winter make you realise just how cold and impersonal this space in your house is? Hosting a festive season get together but not getting those merry vibes from your entertaining area? Wall cladding may be what you need – especially in your brain area.
Cladding is the Solution
Stone or tile wall cladding can improve your living space in the blink of an eye. (Don’t worry! It is easier to apply than tiles – no grouting needed!)
Cladding is an easy way to totally update the look and feel of any wall or room in and around your house. By adding stone cladding to the walls of your braai room, or even just to the accent walls around your braai itself, your previously bland and impersonal entertaining space quickly becomes something completely different.
One of the biggest benefits of cladding is that it can be added to any existing wall with minimal effort and no structural changes needed. Cladding can also be used to improve sound quality in a room, improving its resonance (taking away the hollowness/echo) as well as making a room soundproof to the outside world – perfect if you happen to live in an estate or neighbourhood with strict noise regulations, but also love your Saturday dance parties…
Types of Wall Cladding
There are many different materials used for cladding. The most common are natural stone and slate tiles. These are both perfect for adding a more rustic vibe to any room and works well in a South African braai room setting – a rough-hewn stone wall brings a bit of the bushveld into suburbia, making a lazy Sunday braai feel more like a bush-break than a desperate last stab at fighting off the Monday blues.
Cladding, and in particular stone cladding, also spans different price ranges. You can get some thinner types of stone cladding tiles that really don’t break the bank.
You can, of course, also go a bit crazy and pick the individually hand-hewn, extra-thick pieces of sandstone that have been fashioned into a cladding tile. But that’s the beauty of cladding. The possibilities are endless, and the choice is yours and yours only.
Cladding Top Tips
- If you share a wall with one of your neighbours, adding cladding to the shared wall can provide a greater sense of auditory privacy for both you and the neighbour!
- If you live in a cold climate, adding a layer of insulation between your wall and the cladding tiles can also be a game-changer.
- Don’t think that you can’t display anything on a cladded wall. Yes, framed conventional art won’t necessarily work too well, but half-moon wall baskets of hanging plants will keep your new wall looking fresh and Avant-Garde.
