11 Versatile Garage Wall Covering Ideas that Fit Any Design Style

Why leave your garage wall bare if you can have garage wall covering?

There are some reasons why you should do that.

Maybe you need to add more storage to your small garage, so the most reasonable way is to add a storage garage wall covering or slatwall to hang some smaller items.

Or, maybe your garage is a bit too dark, and it has to be lightened up in some ways. Yes, wall covering can add that effect, too. For instance, bright white plastic or fiberglass will be able to make your dark garage look brighter.

Moreover, some of us think that finished and covered garage walls are easier to maintain and clean than bare studs.

Obviously, having garage wall coverings will increase your home value. It has no direct correlation, though, but potential buyers are more attracted to homes that have garage wall coverings because they make the garage look more attractive.

The question is, what kind of garage wall covering that you should add to your garage? If you’re still unsure, here are 10 versatile ideas that you can apply to your own garage:

1. Mural as a Garage Wall Covering for a Personalized Look

This large Mediterranean garage has a large wall surface. And the wide part of it is covered by a mural.

The mural is one of the efficient ways to cover a garage wall because it’s easy to install and versatile enough to fit into any architectural design.

The mural of this garage shows a picture of racing cars, a suitable option for a garage. This mural also has a monochromatic color, so it can work as a backdrop for the rest of the elements in this garage.

On another side of the wall, the homeowners also cover the garage wall with a slat painted in white. This slat garage wall covering functioned as a storage station, a spot where the owners mounted some hooks and wall cabinets.

Having two different wall coverings in a garage like this will serve you two benefits, aesthetic and functional.

2. Functional Slat Wall Covering for a Garage as Extra Storage

If you also store your bikes in your garage, it’s recommended for you to have a slat wall covering completed with hooks.

Hooks are easier to install in a slat wall like this. This way, you can save more space. The floor space can fully function for cars only. What an efficient way to decorate a small garage.

Additionally, you can also hang other miscellaneous items in your slat wall covering using hooks. Hooks on a slat wall is a great organizer. With this, you can easily access your items without tripping over them.

Don’t ever think that using a slat wall as a covering is boring. In fact, slat wall is available in many colors. Similar to concrete, you can also paint it.

Yet, most slat walls are made of wood. If you want to paint them, make sure to add a coat or a sealer first. It’s because wood can absorb moisture, and applying paint directly to it won’t help.

On the other hand, this garage wall covering is made of cellular PVC. It’s a better alternative for wood if you want cheaper options. Plus, this PVC slat wall is easy to clean. If it gets dirty, you can just hose it off.

3. Slat PVC Garage Wall Covering for a Traditional Look Idea

If the previous picture features a gray painted slat wall, this garage has a white one. Both are made of PVC material.

Painting the wall covering in white is a useful way to make the garage appear larger than it actually is. Incorporating white is a general rule that should be applied in any small room.

We can see here that the slat wall is completed with hooks that are used to hang some smaller tools and items. Even though they don’t make the most aesthetic garage wall covering, at least these hooks are useful to organize things.

To complete the efficiency of this garage wall covering, the homeowners also added cabinetry as an additional wall covering. The custom-made cabinetry fills one area of the wall.

Like the slat wall, this cabinetry is also painted in white, so they blend seamlessly.

Combining a slat wall with hooks and cabinetry like this is a recommended way to cover your small garage wall. You can hang smaller items and keep the bigger ones inside the cabinetry.

4. The Idea of Using Wallpaper for a Garage Wall Covering

According to the designer, this was a modern garage made of regular sheetrock walls.

Most people wonder, what is the difference between sheetrock and drywall?

Well, both are actually the same. Sheetrock is the name of the brand, and they are often used interchangeably.

Drywall itself is also known as wallboard. It includes gypsum, asbestos cement board, wood pulp, and plywood. Drywall is one of the most popular materials for garage wall covering because it has high acoustic and thermal properties.

Actually, using drywall only as a garage wall covering is enough. But the designer decided it would be better to add a wallpaper to cover the drywall.

Maybe because the homeowners preferred to have a fully covered garage with wallpaper, so it can be personalized.

Judging from the dimension, this garage is basically quite small. Incorporating a wallpaper with a dark tone like this won’t help make this area look bigger.

However, we can’t deny that this wallpaper has a lovely view. It offers a scenic view, adding an outdoor sensation to this small and fully enclosed area.

To counteract the darkness that the wallpaper gives, the homeowners installed a lot of lighting on the ceiling. These lights are useful to illuminate the whole area and make it look brighter than it actually is.

5. Wood Paneling Garage Wall Covering for a Rustic Look

The best wall covering for your garage should be wood paneling to achieve a rustic look.

Similar to other materials, wood also has a wide array of options. It is available in many species and types. However, the most common wood types used for wall paneling are cedar and redwood.

It appears that this garage is covered by a tongue and groove horizontal wall panel. The wood panel is made of medium wood tone, but it’s completed with dark trim.

Such a combination delivers a dark look to this small garage, making it a bit creepy. Moreover, the floor is also dark, blending with the trim and the wall covering.

To solve this problem, the most reasonable way is by adding a lot of lights.

In this garage, the designer installed recessed ceiling lights to help fight the darkness. Despite the dark look, the wood panel is known as efficient because it doesn’t require mudding or tapping joints.

Similar to the PVC slat wall, the wood panel also lets you attach storage items, like hooks or shelves. But in most cases, wood panels need additional support between existing studs.

6. Red Cedar Vertical Panel Garage Wall Covering that Matches the Ceiling

Instead of horizontal, this garage wall covering has a vertical wood panel. The wood panel in this project is made of red cedar, and it extends to the ceiling.

The floor also has a similar panel, even though it seems that the wood panel of the floor is different from the wall and the ceiling because the floor is a bit lighter than the wall covering.

In order to maintain a sleek and neat look, the homeowners decided to let the wood panel wall covering bare without any hooks or hanging items.

Even though hooks are useful to save more floor space, they are also notorious for concealing the charm of the wall. It’s obvious that the designer wanted to stay as rustic as possible by displaying a large amount of wood in this garage.

Incorporating wood panels for wall covering, ceiling, and floor may look a bit too monotonous for some, but for a rustic garage like this, or for smaller garages, they will create cohesion, letting the eyes follow each line and structure of the building, thus, making it look bigger than it is.

There are a lot of windows and lighting to illuminate this all-wood garage. That’s an excellent way to make sure that the wood panel won’t absorb too much moisture.

7. Storage Garage Wall Covering to Save More Space

This traditional garage has a Slatwall wall organization as a covering.

We all agree that when it comes to wall organization, Slatwall will enable you to store your items without unsightly hooks or random holes in the wall.

This wall covering features a wall organizing system that lets you store things like brooms, shovels, rakes, and such off the floor.

The high-quality storage garage wall covering is waterproof, durable, and available in plenty of colors that fit your personal taste and garage’s design.

With such storage wall covering, you can be sure that your garage will always look neat and tidy.

When choosing a Slatwall storage wall covering, make sure you choose the product with color throughout the panel. So there should be no laminates, paints, or coatings involved.

This way, your garage wall will also look clean because any scratches or nicks remain hidden, for the color penetrates deeply through the material.

In this garage, the cabinets are in white and deep red color, a combination that delivers an elegant style to the entire area.

See how the deep red cabinets work as a splash of color in this neutral color palette.

8. Resawn Douglas Fir Garage Wall Covering for a Transitional Look

This transitional garage features a shiplap wall covering that is made of resawn Douglas fir. The pattern of this wood was actually accidental, according to the designer.

Like more wood species, Douglas Fir also secretes tannin. And in order to prevent this, people should apply a tanning stain blocking coat first to the wood panel.

In this case, the tanning block was not applied. So, the tannin or the bleed-out that you see in this wall covering seeps through the finish coat.

If you think that the pattern is charming and attractive, that’s how you should treat your Douglas fir wood panel wall covering: don’t apply the tanning block prior to finishing it. The finish itself is a solid color stain by Olympic known as “Outside White”.

At first, the panel will look white. But after a while (no more than a few months), the tannins will naturally seep through. This Doug Fir wood panel is completed with white trim. Both create a soft and natural look.

On one side of the wall, below the window, there’s a darker wood covering that seems to be a bench or storage. The combination will work well if you pair it with the dark floor as a contrast.

9. Black Metal Wall Covering for a Modern Look

Even though it may not be as popular as wood panels, a metal panel is also a good option for a garage wall covering.

It works well in a modern setting because metal will never fail to give you an urban style, a minimalist look that is often associated with a modern and trendy style.

The metal panel is finished in a dark color, matte black, that matches the cabinetry on one side of the wall.

Since metal wall covering is quite expensive, it may not be efficient if you apply it to the entire wall of your garage.

Even in this project, the designer only incorporates a metal panel on one side only.

Another side of the wall is covered with a usual painting. The rest of the wall is painted in white, clearly to contrast the dark metal panel, the ceiling, and the cabinet.

The white wall and floor counteract the darkness produced by the metal panel.

Every element in this garage gives a monochromatic look, a simple, minimalist, yet elegant appearance that you often see in a modern design.

10. Custom Closet Garage Wall Covering for Storage

Slatwall is indeed a great wall covering to save more space.

However, it will make your garage look crammed because the hanging items are still clearly visible, even though they are hung neatly on the wall. For some, it is not the neat look they want to achieve.

If you think the same way, you should consider using a closet garage wall covering. The closets fill most of the wall surface in this garage and perfectly cover it functionally.

You should order a custom closet to fit your garage wall to get a look like this. The closet should fill the wall from floor to ceiling to cover the wall entirely.

However, the closets in this garage seem to be floating off the floor, creating a more unique look.

Having this wall covering will enable you to have a neat and well-organized garage. Items other than vehicles can be stored inside the closet.

Yes, there are hooks too in the wall, but it’s only in a small amount. The hooks are installed beneath the wall cabinets. They are used to hang some smaller items.

What a beneficial way to cover your garage wall.

11. Gray-painted Garage Wall Covering to Create a Transitional Look

Don’t think that garage wall covering should be as fancy as wood panels, metal panels, or storage cabinets. Sometimes, it’s better to stay humble and lowkey. You can apply a coat of paint to your wall, and it works as a wall covering, too.

In fact, painting is considered the most versatile garage wall covering because you can choose a certain paint color that fits your garage’s style and, of course, your personal style.

In this transitional garage, the homeowners painted the entire wall in a soft gray color, an alternative shade of white.

If you think the white painted wall will only make your garage look too stark, then you can paint the walls in a soft gray like this.

The soft gray painted wall covering is paired with a white baseboard and ceiling, creating an ultra-modern look.

However, there are double-hung windows completed with barn-style shutters made of wood. This wooden shutter pulls off a traditional vibe and surely looks odd against the modern soft gray wall covering.

Yet, the combination of traditional style shutter and neutral color palette gives a totally new look, which is transitional.

In order to decorate the bare wall covering, you can add some decorations like banners on the wall.

The designer of this project also installed a basket. Surely this garage is used not only for parking vehicles but also to play basketball when all the cars are away. Such a versatile garage.