Renovation Uncovers Vintage Wallpaper

I love all things vintage , particularly the early 1900’s – 1940’s . So it was a thrill and an honor to help decorate this 1926 home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston .
The homeowners revere their new abode , too, and carefully maintained the character of the home during the renovation, while still adding updates that facilitate life in a modern world .
They also preserved many of the original features , and created a sort of ” shrine ” near the back door.
This framed wallpaper sample is one of those.

I love these old papers, and have a growing collection of my own.
Back in the day, the ship-lapped walls were covered with cheesecloth – like fabric , which was tacked to the wood . The wallpaper was pasted and then applied over that.
You can see some of that fabric peeking out at at the top of this sample .

Just about every room had a border running around the top, below the ceiling , as seen in this example.
This was stylish through many decades , so it’s difficult to tell what era this particular paper is from. To me, this looks like the 1950’s – but it could be as early as the 1920’s .
Borders were still popular into the 1990’s , but wider. I’ve hung bunches of them!
This ” history wall ” also included keys , mailbox parts , invoices written in fountain pen , hinges , and other cool old memorabilia .

A Very Pretty Heights House Renovation

New drywall. I draped strips of protective dropcloth paper over the top of the wainscoting, to protect from splatters from my primer.

Notice the “raised ink” and the hand-painted look.

Recent updates reflect respect for the original feel of this 1920 bungalow in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. There will be a claw-foot tub, as well as a very cool authentic vintage pedestal sink that the homeowner found on the side of the road, discarded from another older bungalow just a few blocks away. !!

Vintage-look beaded board paneling was added, along with hexagonal floor tile, both in a warm, muddy green that compliments the greens in the wallpaper.

The homeowner has a stunningly beautiful garden, and sought a wallpaper pattern that would bring the feel of nature indoors.

The top photo shows the walls as the contractor left them, in what we call a “Level 4” condition. This is optimal for wallpaper installation. No texture for me to get rid of, and no paint or PVA-based primers under the wallpaper. All I had to do was roll on my wallpaper-specific primer, Romans Pro 977, Ultra Prime.

The wallpaper is called Garden Party and is by York, in the Waverly collection (yes, reviving classic designs from the 1990’s!), and in their SureStrip line – one of my favorite products. It is pre-pasted, goes up nicely, hugs tight and thin to the wall, and performs wonderfully over the years, even under (mildly) humid conditions – such as a bathroom in an old house with poor ventilation.

The interior designer for this job is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design. She works mostly on new builds and whole-house remodels, and mostly in the Heights / Garden Oaks neighborhoods.

From Staid to Wild and Adventurous

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This powder room is in one of the traditional Georgian style homes that were popular with builders in the West University Place area in the 1990’s. The original tufted-wall wallpaper went perfectly with that era and style home. But the new owners are a young couple with school age children, and the mom wanted some “Wow!” factor. She fell in love with this bold stripe. What makes it unique are the child-like swaths of color in between the black stripes.

The original dark red paper was on all walls, the sloped ceiling under the stairs, and even the ceiling itself. To me, it seemed dark and crowded. The homeowner agreed with me to not repaper the small flat ceiling area. But there was a lot of debate over whether or not to paper the sloped section. Once all the walls were papered, I tacked some strips to the ceiling, so she could get a feel for how the room would look and feel with paper overhead. The decision was to go ahead!

I don’t usually like wallpaper on overhead areas, but this time I have to say that I think she made the right choice.

This McKenzie Childs wallpaper pattern is a bold choice for this small room, and will take some accessorizing to really make it work. There is a huge rectangular mirror that almost totally covers the wall behind the sink. The medium-brown vanity will be painted a soft smoky blue, to coordinate with the blue in the paper. And the wall that faces you when you walk into the room will get a large piece of abstract art, with reds, yellows, greens, blues, and, of course, black, which will really stand out against the paper.

And that’s just what the homeowner wanted … opening the door to the powder room and stepping into a wild and unexpected experience.