Work is almost like a vacation this week … Up outside of Chappell Hill, this is the country home of a family I have worked for in their place in Houston.
The building pictured is an old general store-turned family-friendly bar in Washington – “the Birthplace of Texas.” To be honest, it’s about ALL there is in Washington. 🙂
I hung pink wallpaper in this little girl’s room and bathroom in the family’s Houston home a year or two ago, and they asked me to bring some more pink sweetness to the girl’s room in their country home outside of Chappell Hill, Texas.
This design is called “Yukutori” and is by Farrow & Ball. While a stronger design would work well on a single accent wall, this is a good pattern for putting on all four walls, because it’s soft and receding, and will be a good backdrop without stealing attention from furniture and artwork.
The slight orange-y tinge to the color works well with the red brick fireplace and chimney.
This paper is by Farrow & Ball, a British company.
I am disappointed in the quality of their paper, especially for the price the homeowners paid. I’ll talk more about this in later posts, which will include photos.
For now, enjoy the sweet look of this little girl’s bedroom in the country.
I didn’t make it to my job in Chappell Hill today, due to this on-highway disaster (after the guy at NTB told me on Monday that the tire was fine and safe).
Luckily I was in town, and had not reached the country roads that lead to my client’s home.
Thank you AAA and Discount Tire for getting me safely back on the road within just a few hours.
No thanks to NTB. BTW, this is the THIRD tire of theirs that has blown out like this.
Farrow & Ball’s “Hornbeam” pattern is reminiscent of hedgerows in rural England.
I hung this in a powder room of a home outside Chappell Hill. I’ve worked for the homeowners previously in their Houston home.
While the pattern is lovely and suits the scale of the room and coordinates perfectly with the color of the marble contertop (and the color scheme of the rest of the house), I am not crazy about the quality of the wallpaper.
I will be posting more on this as I have time. Do a Search on the brand name to read these posts.
Non-woven wallpapers are getting more and more common, and they have many advantages. Some of them, though, are what I describe as thick and spongy, and they can present some challenges when installing.
For instance, this paper is so thick that it does not like to be pushed tightly against a corner, ceiling, or molding. Well, you have to push it tight against the edge before you trim, so you get a cut that is all the way up to the molding, with no gaps.
Unfortunately, this particular material will crease very easily when manipulated into these areas. Look at the top of the photo, right under the wooden ledge. Trying to work around more complicated elements (pedestal sink, intricate crown molding, narrow area, etc.) can cause more creasing.
Not all non-wovens do this, but I have found that those by Cole & Son are likely to be problematic.
(Don’t pay attention to the slight pattern mis-match … These strips were placed under a counter where they are mostly hidden. I intentionally raised the pattern on one strip in order to keep a particular design motif at the right height where it hit the baseboard.)
Dark papers are always a little scary, because if they are printed on white stock, when the paper dries and shrinks a tad, there is always the chance that a teeny bit of white will show at the seams. Some companies minimize this by printing on a dark stock – but that is rare.
Another thing you can do is take chalk or water-based marker and color the edges of the paper. It works pretty well, but is time consuming.
This company – Cole & Son – went one better, and made sure that ink from the surface got onto the edges of the paper as well. So there are no white edges to peek out at the seams.
In addition, because they printed on a non-woven material, which is made of synthetic fibers and is dimensionally-stable, it won’t shrink when it dries, further reducing the chance of getting gaps at the seams.
“Before,” this first floor home office in a home in Bellaire (Houston) had a pretty color on the cabinets, but felt empty and blah. “After,” the dark wallpaper really sets off the cabinets, and gives the walls definition and personality.
The wallpaper also went in the area below the counter top – I wanted to take the photo before we lost daylight.
This Hummingbird pattern by Cole & Son is over 100 years old. It’s printed on a non-woven substrate, and can be hung by the paste-the-wall method or by pasting the paper (which is what I did).
Don’t look at the plant – look at the WALLPAPER! 🙂
I hung this a month ago and was back to do another room today, so had a chance to take this shot. It’s a perfect “background” pattern in a dining room, for this busy family of young children, in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston.
A distant shot to show you the warmth, and a couple of close-ups to show the texture.
This wallpaper went on all walls of a small vestibule leading into a master bedroom, and then on the headboard wall of the bedroom itself. The remaining walls were painted a coordinating grey color.
This is a thick textured vinyl material on a woven fabric (scrim) backing. Unlike most wallpapers, this is quite durable and stain-resistant – it’s the same type of stuff they use in hotels and hospitals, where it’s going to get banged into by carts and washed every now and then.
It is also extremely heavy. I’m betting that each double-roll bolt weighed at least 15 pounds. I could barely carry three at a time. A pasted strip 9′ long took about all my strength to lift higher than my head and position on the wall (while balancing on a ladder!).
Because it is so thick, it was hard to press tightly against the wall/ceiling junctions, so it took a little work to get a nice, tight cut. It was also difficult to cut through, so I had to press really hard, and went through a lot of razor blades, and still had to use my scissors to finalize some of the cuts, particularly to cut through some of the string backing.
My shoulders and arms are sore!
This embossed, textured pattern made a lovely, soft backdrop to the bed, and added a warmth that the paint alone could not.
The manufacturer is Thibaut. The older home has been beautifully enlarged and updated, and is in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. The interior designer is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design.
This completely renovated ranch-style home in the Shepherds Park Plaza / Candelight Terrace / Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston is decorated in grey and white, with strong touches of natural weathered wood tossed in.
The homeowner wanted to warm things up in the dining room. A deep brown paint on the ceiling set the ball rolling.
The homeowner was originally considering real grasscloth, but once I explained the many problems with that product (see page at right), she took my advice and selected this faux grasscloth, from Wallquest, in their Grass Effects book, in their EcoChic line.
Ths product is made of paper, and it has a printed fiber pattern that mimics real grasscloth. But unlike grasscloth, the pattern on this stuff can be matched from strip to strip, so you don’t see abrupt lines at every seam.
In addition, fine strings are overlaid vertically on top of the material, giving the texture and depth that people are wanting right now.
My only gripe is that there were some noticeable color variations between strips. If you enlarge the photos, you can better see what I am talking about.
I have hung the tan colorway of this product several times, with no color variations.
But this is the third time that I will have hung the darker, browner version, and each time there were differences in color / shade between strips. Do a Search here to see previous posts.
This is disappointing, because I build this product up as a perfect solution to grasscloth. It turns out, particularly with this brown colorway, to share many of the woes of that natural material.
This wallpaper / faux grasscloth is by WallQuest, and was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.
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