Timorous Beasties, Papillion de Nuit

Say it in French and it sounds beautifully exotic. In reality, they’re moths.

This rhythmic pattern by Timorous Beasties went in a powder room in a new home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. Note the brick and wooden accents in the room.

Whereas most wallpaper patterns repeat either every strip or every other strip (half-drop), Papillion de Nuit has a quarter-drop pattern match, which means that the pattern repeats itself every fourth strip. It’s extremely difficult to figure out and to keep properly placed on the wall, especially when every motif is identical.

In addition, the powder room had some challenging features of its own. The whole job took me about 14 hours! It looks great, though.

It’s made of fiberglass-based non-woven material. This can be installed via the paste-the-wall method, or by pasting the paper (which is what I generally do). Some features of this material is that it is designed to be stripped off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate, and that it is dimensionally-stable and won’t expand or stretch when wetted by the paste.

The interior designer for this job is Stacie Cokinos of Cokinos Design.

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Books and Bricks

This room in a 1920’s home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston is to become something of a “man cave,” hence the dark wood floors and the rich, cobalt blue of the bookcases. The bookcases needed a little more personality, so the interior designer found this beautiful faux brick wallpaper pattern – amazingly in the exact perfect blue hue to match the paint.

The paper is by Wallquest, one of my favorite brands, and was lovely to work with. It’s one of the most realistic faux brick patterns I’ve come across, and does not have the repetitiveness that many patterns so.

The interior designer for this job is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design. Stacie specializes in new construction and whole-house renovations, mostly in the Heights neighborhoods. I can’t say enough good things about her designs and about working with her. https://www.cokinosdesign.com/

Fireworks or Dandelion Heads ??

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No matter if you see fireworks or flowers, this light colored pattern full of bursts of movement really transformed this powder room. Originally, the room was papered a dark brick red color. It was so dark that I could not even get a photo, plus the paper had no pattern, so you have to wonder why they didn’t paint instead.

The homeowner searched hard to find a wallpaper that would coordinate with both her new grey granite countertop and the existing Saltillo tile floor, while brightening up a room that had been cave-like for decades.

I would say that she was successful, because this paper fills the bill in every way.

This home is in the Fondren Southwest neighborhood of Houston. The wallpaper is by York, in their Candice Olson line. The label said it was unpasted, but it turned out to be pre-pasted. I pasted the paper anyway, and was very happy with the quality of the paper, and how nice it was to work with, and how tight the seams were, as well as the overall finished job.

Wallpaper – From Pastoral Toile to Jailhouse Brick

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This powder room started out with a classic French toile in yellow-on-red, on all four walls. It was a popular look – for the mid-Century. The homeowner wanted something both updated and rustic, with a little texture tossed into the mix.

I love the shot of the two patterns next to each other, with the new brick slowly eating up the tired, outdated French toile.

This paper came as a sort of a mural, with three 9’10” panels per bolt. It was intended to not be repetitive, so it had a long pattern repeat and a multiple-drop pattern match. (MDPMs are way too complicated to discuss here.) The look is attractive, because it minimizes the repetitiveness of a design popping up in the same place on every strip. On the other hand, MDPMs are the Devil to figure out, and they eat up a lot of paper, too.

Some of the photos show off the realistic pattern and feelable texture. To be honest, I really liked the product. Well, at least while I was working with the first bolt. It stuck nicely to the wall, turned corners tightly, and the seams were all but invisible. The rustic b5rick pattern looks super behind the dark oil-rubbed-bronze light fixture and faucets.

Then I needed to open a new bolt of paper for my next strips. The packages were not marked as to run or batch numbers. Interestingly enough, there was a slight color difference between “Bolt A” and “Bolt B.” Surprisingly, the color difference was not easy to spot, once the paper was on the wall.

Even with careful packaging, there had been damage to some of the edges of the wallpaper. Besides the banged edges, and paper backing showing white at the edges so I had to take an oil pastel artist’s material to color the edges of each strp. In addition, there was a tad bit of curl in the vinyl at the edges of the bolts of wallpaper. What this translates to is, many of the seams in the room did not lie down as tight and flat to the wall as I would have liked. See photos. I would have been happier with tighter seam joins, but the homeowners thought it all looked lovely.

This wallpaper pattern is by Debbie McKeegan for Digetix, a British company, and was bought on-line directly from England.

Great Houston Chronicle Story About Wallpaper

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Click the link to read about modern trends in wallpaper. Click the link, and you can scroll through photos of wallpaper in room settings. I hung the diamond, stone, brick, and circle wallpapers. Pamela O’Brien of Pamela Hope Designs, is the interior designer quoted in the article, and I am privileged to work with her several times a year on wallpaper installations.

I’m a little disappointed that wallpaper is described as a “luxury item,” because, while this article mentions some really “far out there” materials (LED lights), in real life, room-transforming patterns and textures are available at reasonable costs for “average” people in “everyday” homes.

If you’re getting the itch for how wallpaper can personalize and transform your home, send me an e-mail to wallpaperlady@att.net

Birds! Pen-and-Ink and Watercolor

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Here is wallpaper pattern that is subtle, whimsical, and colorful all at the same time. It looks like a pen-and-ink drawing of trees, with birds filled in in watercolor. Positively beautiful!

I hung this on an accent wall in the dining room of a very nicely updated 1930 brick bungalow in the Norhill district of the Heights neighborhood of Houston. The paper was a non-woven material, and was a paste-the-wall installation process, and was nice to work with. The manufacturer is Holden.

Faux Brick Wallpaper Revisited

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I hung this faux brick wallpaper about a year ago, and was back to do another job, so was able to grab a shot of the finished room.

This is a boy’s bedroom and the home is in the Cypress suburb of Houston, and the interior designer is Pamela Hope Designs.

Custom-Made Wallpaper in Blocks

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Photos: Before, During, Done, and a Close-Up.

This is in a home office in a 1957 house in River Oaks (Houston). The home has traditional elegant features, and also very contemporary features and accessories, making for an interesting mix. The homeowner was looking for something different for his office (formerly everything (walls, moldings, ceiling) was painted brown). He had a few ideas that we discussed, and then I suggested this pieced paper by Stoney Brook Wallcoverings http://www.stoneybrookpaper.com/. He loved the concept immediately.

This paper is custom-made to suit the homeowner’s color choices, and also to fit the dimensions of the wall space. I had to measure meticulously, and then calculate how many blocks of which dimensions would be needed to cover the walls, while keeping a homogeneous look around all the walls with varying dimensions. A die was custom-made to dimensions that would give the best use of material, and then 300 sheets of paper, each being 14″ x 26″ were stamped out.

My job is then to trim each sheet to an appropriate height, so that all blocks tiered on the walls are equal in size. I also plotted the layout so that the blocks on each wall are centered in the middle of the wall. Then, of course, the blocks are pasted and applied to the wall, in a staggered, brick-like pattern. Unlike many of the Stoney Brook products, this one is not overlapped, but butted at the seams.

There is a lot of math involved, and careful measuring and potting before cutting. All that is taking a lot of time. Actually putting the paper on the wall is going fairly quickly.

I am very pleased with this product. Unlike many non-woven wallpaper substrates which are stiff and thick and contrary, this one is thin and malleable, making it easy to maneuver into place, and it hugs the wall nicely.

Stoney Brook is a pieced wallcovering (torn or blocks) similar to the more trendy product made by Vahallan, but much lower in price, more easily accessible, and much more customer-friendly. IMO

So Realistic, You Want to Reach Out and Touch!

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Wow! Talk about fooling the eye! I was at the wallpaper store this morning, picking up paper for a client. I was in a hurry to get off to my job. But the sales gal said I had – HAD – to look at this new wallpaper sample book she had received. Boy, am I glad I did!

This book is called 3D, I forget the manufacturer, but Dorota, the seller person, can get it for you.

Anyway, these are some of the most realistic and intriguing wallpaper patterns I have seen! They truly look like they are three-dimensional. They have paper that mimics brick, stone, wood, logs, honey combs, quilted walls, floating circles, George Jetson-era “amboeas,” and fun-house I-can’t-tell-which-way-is-up designs.

I’ve seen other similar attempts before, but this book is truly fabulous. You don’t notice that the texture is not real, until you get really, really close. They are a fabulous fake / faux! These papers would be fantastic in a contemporary home, for someone who likes mid-century modern, or for someone who wants a rustic look.

If you are interested in adding the illusion of three-dimensional design to your home, contact Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint near the Rice Village (Houston), (713) 520-6262.

Transforming a City Home Into a British Pub

This Memorial-area couple had a vision, and, boy, did they make it happen. This is the dining room of a ’60’s ranch-style home. But they wanted to use it as a pool room / man cave / pub. Friends kept telling them to make it sleek and contemporary, as is in vogue right now. But the homeowners followed their hearts, and created this very unique and authentic room.

That is real brick applied to the far wall. There is a dark, rustic wooden floor, and dark brown crown molding that resembles old wooden beams. The same dark paint covers a chair rail. Below the chair rail is a thick texture that resembles the stucco on homes in 1500’s Sherwood Forest.

Next came the wallpaper – a classic toile of a hunt scene, in a reddish brown on cream, which perfectly compliments both the paint color and the brick wall. I totally love the way this room is coming together – all they need to do is add the pool table, maybe some tarnished brash light fixtures, haul in some comfy leather chairs, and then light the cigars!

This wallpaper is printed on a pulp stock, and is by the British company Sanderson, from the Toile Collection (“Toile” means a line drawing in one color on a plain background, usually depicting blissful scenes from rural life in Jolly Ole England.), pattern # 47-63268 “Fox Hunting.”