Modernizing One More Space

Dating to 1946, this small bungalow is not as “vintage” as most homes in its Riverside neighborhood of Houston. The homeowner opened up the public areas and completely renovated the kitchen, bringing the home to a fresh, contemporary feel. Adding stylish wallpaper to the small, boxy entry was the finishing touch.

This modern pattern is by Carl Robinson, a British designer. It is a traditional paper, instead of the non-woven material that many European brands are printing on. It was nice to work with, i thin and hugs the wall tightly, and will adhere well for years to come.

The entry is visible from the living room, so this small room makes an impact on the rest of the house. The homeowner positively squealed with delight when she came home and saw the finished room!

Modern Industrial Wallpaper with Graffiti

Well, here’s something different and fun. The Montrose area (Houston) home has a very earthy, eclectic feel, and this wallpaper pattern is the perfect compliment. The colors and texture are perfect with the bathroom tile and iron sconces, and the small scrawls of writing and numbers add just a touch of edginess.

This paper is by Carl Robinson, a British company that is distributed by Seabrook here in the U.S. It is a non-woven material and is intended to paste the wall for installation, but I chose to paste the paper, for various reasons, most of which had to do with the two light sconces that could not be removed from the wall. Made the job a little tricky.

The paper was bought at below retail price from 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.

Textured Trellis in a Powder Room

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Here we are in a very nicely remodeled and updated ’60’s era ranch home in the Meyerland area of Houston. When I first met with this couple, they were wanting a grasscloth for their powder room. I took one look at their toddler and the one-on-the-way and told them that grasscloth, with its propensity to staining and bleeding, is a poor choice in rooms with grimy hands, splashing water, and little boys with bad aim. I also really dislike the shading and paneling (color variations between and within strips) that is so common with grasscloth.

I was glad that they took my advice and found something with the textured look and feel they were seeking, but that would hold up much better to their growing, active family. In addition to having a slight grass-like texture, the paper has a Moroccan trellis design. The color of the paper is almost the same as the paint that was in the room originally, but the trellis pattern takes the room from feeling blocky and cell-like to feeling more spacious and inviting.

The paper was nice to work with. I was particularly happy that the design did not cross the seams, meaning that there was no pattern to match at the seams. This enabled me to keep the motif at exactly the spot on the wall where I wanted it – in this case, 2 1/4″ down from the ceiling. Since walls are never plumb and floors and ceilings are never level, sometimes it will look like a pattern is sliding up or down the wall. Since I was able to maintain that 2 1/4″ spacing all the way around the room, you would never know that the ceiling is sloped a little.

This wallpaper pattern is by Carl Robinson, by Seabrook, and was bought at a discounted price from 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.

Glass Beads and Glitter for New Baby Girl

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A new baby girl is on her way, and Mom thought that the nursery, with its calm, soothing brown walls, needed a little brightening, and a little spark of femininity. With its gentle color and glittery glass beads, this updated classic design fills the bill perfectly.

This is just one short recessed wall, and the crib will sit in front of it. To make the design, real glass beads are embedded into the paper – and you can see how they catch and reflect the light!

The designer is Carl Robinson, and the brand is Seabrook. It is a non-woven paper and is a paste-the-wall product. This wallpaper was bought at a discounted price from 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.

Glass Bead Glamor in a Girl’s Bedroom Get Away

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The pattern is subtle and the color is subdued, and makes a great backdrop for this pre-teen girl’s bedroom accent wall.

But look again in the right light, and you’ll see a lot of glitter and glimmer and shimmer in this wallpaper. Parts of the design are imbedded with glass beads, and they catch and reflect light, making the whole wall look rather exotic. Perfect for a gal this age!

I hung this wallpaper in a new home in the Rice University area of Houston. The pattern is by Carl Robinson for Seabrook, and was purchased from Dorota Hartwig, (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.

Corresponding String Cloth in Adjacent Room, on Bookshelves

Wow, I have not hung string cloth in at least a decade! It is a paper-backed product with actual string fibers on the surface. That’s why there is a somewhat fuzzy aspect to the look.

Here you see the bookshelves primed and waiting for paper, and then the finished job. I took care to place the darkest stripe in the center.

There is an interesting story with this job, and a good lesson to me. I had just finished hanging the coordinating wallpaper in the adjoining exercise room. That paper was a paste-the-wall product on a non-woven backing. I started to work with the striped paper, and assumed it was the same material. I had the first bookshelf done, three strips, and noticed bubbles in the wallpaper and puckering at the seams. I could “chase” these out – but they kept coming back.

Puckering and bubbling are usually caused by the paper absorbing moisture from the paste, and does not happen with non-woven materials (not usually, anyway – I have had it happen). So I dug around and found the instructions. Turns out, this pattern, even though it was a companion to the one I had just finished hanging, and was the same color and printed on seemingly the same substrate, this one was specified to have the paper pasted (not paste the wall). And, they recommended a 10-minute booking (relaxing) time, to allow the paper to absorb the paste, expand, and relax.

Hmmm. Lesson to self: Even if you’ve hung 10,000 rolls of paper, including this same brand, ALWAYS read the instructions. 🙂

Because I had a good primer (Gardz) under the paper, I was able to pull off the strips without damage to the wall. And because it was printed on the non-woven substrate, and had not gotten completely dry, the paper came off in one piece, totally intact.

I didn’t have time to haul in and set up my table, so I laid down some drop clothes on the floor, spread the paper out on them, rolled on paste, booked, (no need for relaxing time, since the paper had already had time to absorb moisture and expand), and then hung the paper.

Whew! It as a bit of a mad dash, but it was the right answer. The newly pasted and hung strips went up perfectly, no bubbles, and the seams were nice and flat. The paper did stretch a little bit, though, horizontally, but not vertically, so I had to trim a little off one side, and it did throw off my placement of the center stripe in one of the bookcases, but, in the end, it looked great.

All this took a little time and more work, but I am glad that I noticed the bubbles and went through the steps to get rid of them. Sometimes, they disappear when the paper dries and shrinks. But you can’t plan on that. So I am glad I took the extra effort to make the job look perfect. The homeowners loved it. (They did not know any of the drama involved in getting a smooth, flat, bubble-free surface.)

This wallpaper design is by Carl Robinson, made by Wallquest which is made for Seabrook, and was hung in a family room in a house in Bunker Hill Village.

Flaw of the Day – Misprint

This wallpaper patterns is by designer Carl Robinson, for Seabrook wallcoverings. It’s a somewhat pricey paper (but in this case, you are paying mostly for the designer’s name).

So I got the prep all done, was rolling the paper out, got my first strip cut, then, into the second strip, discovered this misprint. It ran most of the way through this double roll bolt. I’m lucky that I discovered it when I did, because the other double roll did not have this flaw, and so I might have gotten half of the wall done, then not have been able to finish.

The homeowner is trying to have the paper (a different run, so we have a better chance of not having the same printing defect) express-shipped so the wall can be finished this week. It’s kind of doubtful, though, because of shipping delays due to weather in the east, and happening close to a weekend, etc. We’ll know tomorrow!

Wallpaper as Art

These homeowners in the Houston Heights have been wanting to add art to their home, but after buying a few prints and oil paintings, they wanted something different and more dramatic. They came upon these designs by Carl Robinson for Seabrook Wallpaper (a really, really cool book – please see my previous post, or do a Search on the web), and chose this colorful, wall-filling, mind-impacting powerhouse.

The second photo shows the wall before, then two shots of in-progress, then the final outcome. The photos or murals don’t always fill the entire wall, so the manufacturer offers companion papers that will fill the rest of the space on your wall … in this case, it’s the grey striated paper in photos #4 & #5. You can see how it runs along the left side of the wall, and in the last photo, it runs along the bottom.

The last photo shows the finished wall, unfortunately, in fading light. It was stunning, and when the husband came home, he kept walking into the room, and spent a long time standing in front of the color-splashed wall.

Most men hardly even notice new decorating in their homes, so here is proof that this dramatic wall treatment really packs a punch!

Wallpaper Instead of Oil Paintings

Want to make a statement with art, but want something outside the normal prints and paintings? This wallpaper is THE ANSWER!

Carl Robinson has designed a line for Seabrook of unique images that don’t just hang on the wall, but totally FILL THE WALL with color and imagination.

The images are everything from blobs of wild color to flaking, rusty paint, to close ups of gears or bicycle wheels, to hand-drawn antique Paris maps, on and on.

The designs have accompanying coordinating papers, more or less solid or textured, so as not to compete with the main picture, that are intended to fill the wall space beyond the width of the picture.

I am crazy about this concept, and hope people see it and jump on it. NO ONE ELSE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD – heck, probably no one else in your CITY – will have anything as cool as this!

You can buy these through Dorota at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet at Wakeforest in Houston, call to make an appointment (713) 520-6262, dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com

Re the last photo…the book is expensive, and there is only one of them, hence the note that it must remain in the store (meaning that customers can look at it there, but cannot take it home).