Feature walls in Bengaluru: wallpaper, panels and murals

Every way, cheapest first, for one 10 by 9 ft wall. Bengaluru prices where we have them; the rest are brand and maker price guides for India.

On top of any of these: fixing damp (question 3), and putty and primer if the wall isn't smooth. Ask whether adhesive is in a wallpaper quote.

What people bring us: a parent in Bilekahalli wanted a custom sports wallpaper on one 11 by 9 ft wall for an 11-year-old, with ₹10,000 to ₹15,000 in mind. A printed mural sized to the wall, fitted, works out to about ₹11,000 to ₹16,700 in a plain paper.

Who you call. A shop that prints and puts up its own paper. A fitter who puts up the paper or panels you choose. Or an artist, for a painted or carved mural.

Will it look cheap? What gives wallpaper away is a blurry print and joins you can see. In a reel, one Bengaluru wallpaper printer names three things to check before ordering a custom print: give the height and width right, allowing for an AC, sofa or bed already there; check the picture is sharp enough that it won't look hazy on the wall; and know that a slight colour difference is normal, a big one is a fault. Hold a sample on your own wall in daylight and at night before you order.

The walls to check first: one that backs onto a bathroom or kitchen, an outside wall, and a top-floor wall under a terrace. A wall inside the flat that never feels cold and shows no marks is usually fine.

Where the water comes from is what gets fixed: a leaking pipe or drain, water standing on the roof, or an outside wall with no plaster, Nerolac says. A water-resistant paint only delays it, to an extent. Every paint brand and panel maker we read says the same thing: nothing goes on a damp wall. That's their advice for India as a whole. We found nothing written about Bengaluru walls in the monsoon.

How long to wait. A wallpaper printer in Surat says three weeks of drying after the fix, and the same three weeks after a fresh coat of paint. It's the only figure we found, so ask whoever fixes the damp.

• Wallpaper. Damp air lifts it at the seams, and a wet wall soaks up the paste before it sticks, Asian Paints says. Pasting over damp only delays the curl.
• Panels. PVC and WPC don't rot, but glued straight onto a damp wall they fail, JK Cement says, and damp trapped behind them grows fungus and smells. On a wall that's now dry, ask for a frame of battens with an air gap behind the panels and a 3 to 5 mm gap at the edges. Never MDF or plywood on a wall that has had damp: it swells.
• A painted mural. It's paint, so it blisters and flakes on a wet wall like any other. Dr Shravan asks for a wall that's ready, with cracks and a poor base fixed before he starts.

What the fix costs usually follows the cause. A leaking pipe or a bathroom behind the wall is usually a plumber's job. Water through a terrace or an outside wall is usually waterproofing work. Either way, the wall then needs to dry and often needs fresh putty and primer: a printer puts putty and primer on flaking plaster at ₹12 to ₹18 per sq ft, about ₹1,100 to ₹1,600 for this wall. We found no published price for the fix itself, so get it quoted before you budget for the wall.

Peel-and-stick

About ₹10,700 to ₹17,900

Vinyl paper, stripped when you leave

About ₹7,300 to ₹13,100

Sold for rented homes

Fitted now, about ₹5,900 to ₹10,800

One printer says it comes off cleanly; no maker says what happens to the paint

Stripped, washed, puttied and primed when you leave, about ₹1,350 to ₹2,250

You can put it up yourself

The wall is made good before you hand it back

Fitted vinyl, stripped later, usually costs less. At both ends of the two ranges it comes in under peel-and-stick, and the stripped wall gets its putty and primer back. Peel-and-stick saves you booking a fitter, and you can take it down yourself.

Will peel-and-stick lift the paint? It usually depends on the paint underneath. These sheets are sold as removable. One printer says its peel-and-stick comes off cleanly with no residue, and warns against putting paper on paint less than three weeks old. Try one sheet in a corner for a few weeks before you do the whole wall.

Panels are glued and screwed to the wall, so taking them down leaves holes and glue marks to repair. A painted mural has nothing to take down, but the landlord will see it when you leave.

The deposit. Your rent agreement decides. A Delhi High Court ruling, as Business Today reported it in August 2026, says routine repainting is usually the landlord's cost, while holes can come off the deposit if the landlord shows what the repair cost. The report advises photographing the flat when you move out and asking for an itemised bill. Photos from the day you moved in help too, and get the landlord's yes in writing before anything goes up.

Plan the TV first. Decide where the TV hangs and where the sockets and wires go before the panels go up. Moving a socket later means cutting the panel. PVC and WPC move with heat, so ask for the gap at the edges that the makers advise.

• Compare the total for your wall. Some fitters charge by the roll (₹450 to ₹550 in a national guide) and some by the sq ft (₹18 to ₹25 reported for Bengaluru, from ₹30 or ₹40 at two big firms). On one small wall a minimum can beat both: ₹2,000.
• Ask what else is in it: the adhesive, putty and primer if the wall needs them, and cutting round switches.
• Buy every roll at once. Rolls printed in a later batch can be a slightly different shade, and a large pattern needs extra paper to line up.

How it goes with him. His mother does the groundwork and the base, and he designs and finishes it. It's water-based paint, and the family stays at home. A typical Bengaluru job is about 15 days on site, and he books about a month ahead, so ask him for his next start date. He asks for a wall that's ready, with cracks and a poor base fixed. His past walls are on his profile, Sunrise Productions.

What you see first. A rough design. He says he sometimes keeps the final look a surprise, and in one reel he tells a client the design is rough on purpose. If you want more say, ask for a fuller sketch before you approve it.

Paying and changing your mind. 10% starts the design and 40% more when you approve it; on bigger jobs, 25% at half way and 25% before handover. Cancel within about a week of the advance and he refunds it less 25%. Put the date back 2 to 3 months and tell him, and he holds the advance in full. He doesn't say when the other half is due on a small job.

How other artists usually charge. By the size of the wall, with more for fine detail, realistic faces or carving, and travel extra outside their own city. No other Bengaluru muralist we found publishes a rate. A Kolkata studio lists ₹14,500 for a hand-painted wall of 61 to 90 sq ft, with premium paints and surface prep included, and quotes separately for travel and for a rough wall that needs repair. A Mumbai studio's page puts murals in India at ₹500 to ₹1,500 per sq ft, without saying what that covers.

What the extra ₹9,100 pays for. About ₹5,500 of it is between the two printers. The ₹18,000 printer's own plainest paper that's pasted up, Art Matte, is ₹160 per sq ft, about ₹14,400 for this wall. Neither page says why its plain paper costs what it does. If GST is on top of the first printer's ₹99, at 18% its ₹8,900 becomes about ₹10,500, and that part of the gap shrinks to about ₹3,900.

The texture is the other ₹3,600. The ₹18,000 printer says its linen and canvas papers carry a real surface texture. The first printer says its textured papers are its heaviest, with "excellent durability and a premium feel", and charges ₹130 to ₹200 a sq ft more for them, about ₹11,700 to ₹18,000 more on this wall. Neither says how much longer they last. Both sell samples, so hold each paper on your wall in daylight and at night before you pick.

The ₹18,000 printer's pasted papers run from ₹160 to ₹270 per sq ft, about ₹14,400 to ₹24,300 for this wall before fitting; its two peel-and-stick rolls are ₹119 and ₹129. It says its heaviest, the canvases, leather grain and its top paper, can cost more to fit, because they're heavier to handle and the seams need care.

On mytribe: none of the providers named on this page prints wallpaper, for either kind. Ask us for a fitter.

On a carved mural, the carving sets the price. Dr Shravan charges ₹200 to ₹700 per sq ft for relief, ₹18,000 to ₹63,000 on this wall, and he explained the spread to our team himself. At the low end, the design is simple raised lines, piped onto the wall the way icing goes on a cake. At the top, it's full sculpted figures, like a fairy, a koi or a Buddha's face. The same two people do both.