Friends pop into your home. Business associates or customers step inside your office. They all enter happy and glad to see you; two minutes later they’re sad and can’t wait to flee.

Why? They caught a glimpse of your walls and were dismayed by the monotony and sterility staring them in the face.

When people venture into your living spaces or your work areas, they want to encounter walls that give off warmth and good vibes. They want to gaze at walls that spark emotional connection – connection to your home or office, connection to you and your creativity.

Unfortunately, monotonous and sterile walls prevent such connection.

The solution is a two-step process.

First, acknowledge that your walls have a problem. Say aloud, “My walls are boring.”

Second, and this is the really important part, vow that from this day forward your walls will no longer be boring. Say aloud, “Goodbye, boring walls!”

Now that you’ve said goodbye to boring walls, it’s time to take action. Here are five ways the experts at FastFrame can help you send dullness packing.

Go wild with custom frames. A 2016 Huffington Post article (updated earlier this year) addressed the problem of what to do with uninteresting walls. Many remedies were on offer, some great and others no so much. Tellingly, though, almost half of the 53 solutions specified use of custom framing while another 25 percent practically cried out for custom frames as a necessary finishing touch. The authors probably should have consulted with the experts at any local FastFrame store for some professional advice about that. After all, that’s what the FastFrame experts are there for.

Keep it fresh. Interior design specialists say that, however you dress your walls, be sure to change things up every so often to prevent staleness from setting in. This doesn’t mean you need to replace your FastFrame custom frames once a month or even once per season. But, as FastFrame experts caution, if your wall displays are encased in so many layers of cobwebs that they resemble props from a Halloween haunted house, then it’s definitely time to recalibrate for freshness.

Mix it up. The décor police will not come and arrest you for accenting your walls with an eclectic mix of custom-framed items. There’s no rule compelling you to display only photos. Or to display only memorabilia. Or only artwork. It’s perfectly acceptable – and even desirable in some instances – to showcase a cacophony of images and objects on the same wall. Talk to the experts at your nearest FastFrame for guidance in pulling this off brilliantly.

Defy convention. A gallery of custom frames with nothing inside them makes for an eye-catching and conversation-launching wall display. Empty frames work for the same reason that skilled artists like to sometimes color outside the lines: it shakes up expectations.

Reflect upon your situation. One of the best ways to say goodbye to boring walls is with the use of mirrors, custom-framed of course. The cool thing about mirrors is they not only make a wall come alive, they also fool the eye into seeing the room as considerably larger than it actually is. FastFrame offers an extensive selection of frames to fit whatever size or type of mirror you want mounted.

Bottom line: help your guests and visitors feel truly welcome by giving your walls personality and charm. The custom-framing experts at FastFrame are your first choice when it comes to help saying goodbye to boring walls.