Textured wall has been skim-floated, sanded smooth, primed, and ready for wallpaper. Done!Here’s how we got there …. First, this is a non-woven , paste-the-wall material. It’s nice paper, but very stiff and wants to remain curled up. So to get it to cooperate, after cutting my strips, I roll them backward, backing side facing out, and secure with an elastic hairband. This helps get rid of the curl, and also ensures that when I’m on my ladder at the wall and unroll the strip, the face will not bump into the pasted wall. After finding the mid point of the wall, and the center of the wallpaper pattern (beware – it’s usually not perfectly in the center or at the edge of the paper), I draw a plumb line (or use my laser level) and hang the first strip against it. It’s important to start in the middle, first to get the pattern centered. Next, because ceiling lines are never perfectly level, the pattern can start to go off-track as it moves across the wall. Meaning, the motif I placed at the tip of the wall may start drifting up or down. By starting in the middle and working outward, any drifting is lessened because it’s split between the right and left sides of the wall. Close up.Called Amazon , this is by Clarke & Clarke, in their Animalia line. I hung some very colorful zebras from this same company just a few weeks ago – go Search and find the photos!Matching pattern on the throw pillow, and a bolster pillow in the same colors against the white bedding really pulls the room together, and gives the colors more impact. The homeowner dabbles in interior design , and has really put together a Wow Factor guest bedroom ! The home is in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston . installer
The homeowners are into comics and fantasy art. While I hung a calm crocodile hide textured wallpaper in the home office, the couple chose this wild and boldly hued zebra pattern for the adjoining bathroom. I just love the way the bright orange pops out against the white vanity, countertop, toilet, floor, shower tile, and moldings. This pattern is called Lost World and is by Clarke & Clarke . It’s a nice non-woven material, was easy to work with, and will hold up well, even under humid conditions if the shower in this bathroom is used.
A lot of clients tell me they love birds, and are seeking wallpaper patterns with foliage and birds. (Do a Search here (upper right corner) on the word “birds.”) Most of those are what you would call sweet patterns. This design, on the other hand, can only be called BOLD.
The homeowner, also in the Houston Heights, is the sister to the guy mentioned in yesterday’s post. As you can see, they share an adventurous taste in decorating!
Although the pattern has a lot going on, it doesn’t feel busy, even in a powder room, partly because of the fairly homogenous color scheme, and also because of the all-over placement of the design elements. Besides, who can resist those intense faces? My favorite is the owl-like bird staring you dead in the eye.
The walls in this new home were heavily textured, so I had to smooth them first (see top photos) and then prime with a penetrating sealer called Gardz.
This wallpaper pattern is by Clarke & Clarke, a British company. As are many British products, it is printed on a non-woven substrate and is quite durable. It can be dry-hung using the paste-the-wall method – but I prefer to paste the paper. It was a little easier to work with than yesterday’s paper, being thinner and softer and less prone to creasing.
This 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.
I don’t wallpaper many ceilings, but when I do, I prefer small areas that are not too high. Here is a closet in a home in Bellaire (Houston) that has been decked out to fit the needs (lots of handbags and shoes!) and taste (glam, glam glam!) of the homeowner.
The room boasts some fancy wall light sconces with large crystals, and this huge chandelier with the same mega-crystals. The only thing that could stand up to all this glitz and glamor is a very dynamic wallpaper!
So here you have the perfect foil (pun intended 🙂 ) – a deeply textured, copper / gold embossed vinyl wallpaper. Light bounces off the metallic surface and brightens the room. But shadows are caught by the deep texture of the material, and the perimiter of the ceiling holds shadowy secrets.
This wallpaper is a textured embossed vinyl on a non-woven substrate, and is by Clarke & Clarke, a British manufacturer. The interior designer for the project is Martha Holmes, of MPH Designs, in Houston. I have worked with Martha for nearly two decades, and really love her classic-yet-livable style, and find her upbeat personality a joy to work with.
You’ve heard of the Black Dahlia – well, here is a much less lethal version. It is called “Dahlia,” and is by Clarke & Clarke, a British company. It is printed on a non-woven substrate, and is a paste-the-wall product.
I hung this a year or so ago in a powder room in Tanglewood.
This wallpaper pattern has an unusual match – it’s a multiple drop match.
Usually, there are two standard types of pattern matches … one is “straight,” which means that the same design element is at the top of every strip. But on a “drop match, the design will be at the top of the first strip, but then drop down a few inches on the next strip. By the third strip, it’s back up to the top.
But in “multiple drop matches,” you don’t have this kind of predictable rhythm, and the pattern match drops differently and somewhat irregularly … hard to explain.
But you had better catch this BEFORE you start cutting your strips, or you are going to ruin a whole lot of paper because none of the strips will match up with each other.
It’s hard to see in the photos, because the flowers look the same – but they’re not. If you look closely, you will see that one particular flower is never at the top of the wall more than once, even after four strips. This weird pattern match required that, instead of knowing what each strip would look like and being able to cut all my strips at once, instead, I had to lay out each strip and then lay out the one to go next to it, to find the pattern match. And I had to keep track of which strips were to be placed on the left and which were to be placed on the right. Oddly, the ones heading left matched with little waste. But when I started going to the right, much more paper had to be rolled off and discarded before the pattern would match correctly.
This perky paper is by Clarke & Clarke, and is called “Dahlia.”
This cute wallpaper went in the powder room of a slightly contemporary home in the Memorial area of Houston. Usually, people keep the door to their powder room closed, so when a guest opens the door to step in – POW! What a riot of color and fun pattern!
This is by Clarke & Clarke, a British company, on a non-woven substrate, and is called Dahlia.
It was purchased through Dorota at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet at Wakeforest (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Always call and make an appointment before heading over.
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