I hung this wallpaper a year or two ago and was back to paper the dining room this week, so had a chance to peek into the powder room and get a “finished” photo. Here it is with lights off. With lights on. South wall. I love the window molding and vanity painted to complement the wallpaper . This is in a beautifully remodeled and enlarged bungalow in the Heights neighborhood of Houston . This lively and fun pattern is called Frutto Proibito and is in the adventurous Fornasetti collection by Cole & Son . It’s a popular pattern, and I installed it a number of times, including a few months ago in a Montrose laundry room. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/cole-son-monkeys-liven-up-laundry-day/ This material is a DIY -friendly non-woven / paste the wall type of wallpaper . It’s strong , durable , stain-resistant , and will strip off the wall easily and with no damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate .
Calculating for wallpaper is not about square feet. Square feet works for paint, where you can use every bit of paint in the can to spread around the room. Not so for wallpaper. You also have to factor in the amount of waste. Waste has to do with trimming at ceiling and floor, trimming around windows and doors and vanities and etc. And with matching the pattern. This pattern has a 30” pattern repeat. That means, depending on the height of your wall, you can lose nearly 3’ just to match one strip to the next. In this photo, you can see 2’ length being cut off. All that gets tossed into the trash.This wallpaper is nearly 2’ wide. That 2’ wide x 2’ long lost to match each strip = nearly 4 square feet lost to the scrap pile – for each strip. Here’s a look at the scrap pile. Multiply that by 20 strips needed to get around the room. !Here’s more. All this is going in the trash. So, please, before purchasing your wallpaper, please let the installer measure and calculate how much you need. I prefer to / insist on measuring in person, but some of my colleagues will calculate from your measurements, drawings and photos. The pattern is called Frutto Proibito and is by Cole & Son .
Here I’m about to place my last wallpaper strip, which will run from the ceiling to floor, about 5” wide strip along the cabinet (in this photo this strip has already been placed – just imagine it as being blank wall). And then the area under the cabinet, about 20” wide x 4’ high. It’s awkward to handle a strip that’s 20” wide x 9’ long, if you only need to cover a 5” wide area. Also it slops a lot of paste onto the cabinet, that you then need to wipe off. So normally I would split this strip vertically, from ceiling to floor, to 6” wide, enough to cover that 5” wide area next to the cabinet, plus underlap the cabinet by 1”. This 1” provides stability in case of shifting, and also in case the wall isn’t exactly straight or my measurements a tad off, or paper expands, etc. After that 6” wide strip was in place, I’d take the left side of the split strip (remaining 14” wide piece) and put just the bottom 4’ of that into place. But I realized that it would be simpler in this instance to cut the strip horizontally, a little above 4’ high. There was a conveniently placed tree branch that disguised my cut.Here’s the upper 5” wide section in place. Here is the bottom section going into place.Tree branch meets tree branch, the joint is invisible. Next the excess under the cabinet will be trimmed off, as well as where this strip meets the existing piece in the corner, at the far left. This corner will be hidden behind the dryer in this laundry room , so was chosen to be the kill point / mis-matched corner . The pattern is called Fruto Prohibido and is by Cole & Son . It’s a nice non-woven / paste the wall material , although I usually paste the paper .
Here you’re looking at a laundry room, under the counter, and behind the sink. I’ve got to put wallpaper back there. Even though nobody’s going to look under here or scrutinize, I want it to look perfect. Good thing that I’m small, because I can fit under here and maneuver fairly well. Still, working around these pipes is really taxing. You have to make a lot of relief cuts , and other measures, to get the wallpaper to fit around the pipes and then lie against the wall. Additionally, usually the drywall guys were not able to get the wall perfectly smooth in these areas. Escutcheons (decorative plates) will hide a lot of wall bumps, imperfect cuts, gaps, overlaps, and other normal occurrences in situations like this. Only thing is, the plumber “forgot” to put escutcheons around the water lead lines and the drain pipe under this sink. I think that I was able to trim neatly enough that no escutcheons are needed. 😊 This wallpaper pattern is called Frutto Proibito and is by Cole & Son . It’s a non-woven / paste the wall material , easy to strip off the wall when you redecorate , and easy to hang (except for cramped areas under sinks ! )
Look close – there are monkeys stealing fruit !Window wall before. Here I’ve applied my wallpaper primer to the upper portion of the wall, and am working my way down. Closer view of sink area. The dryer and washer will be placed against this wall, and into this corner . If there’s any words to describe this family , it’s lively and fun-loving . No wonder the mom chose this pattern ! The interior designer loved it, too. Stacie Cokinos of Cokinos Design . The wallpaper pattern is by Cole & Son , a long-established British company , in their Fornasetti (” edgy ” ) line. Like most British papers these days, this is a non-woven material and a paste the wall installation method . Although I usually prefer to paste the paper . The pattern is called Frutto Proibito – Forbidden Fruit . This is in a townhome in the Montrose area of central Houston .
Shot of the finished breakfast room , for pattern reference.Close-up view. The vertical lines are not wrinkles , but shadows cast by the macrame light fixture in this breakfast room . The problem is, when walls aren’t plumb , and ceiling and floor and chair rail are not level , the pattern motifs won’t march across the wall at the same height on every strip . I’ve learned that, in most cases, it’s more important to match the pattern in the corner , and then allow the pattern to go off-track at ceiling or floor if necessary. In this photo, note that the humming bird is sitting completely above the chair rail. Here he’s dropped down to where his tail is swallowed up by the chair rail . By the time we get to the left corner , half of the bird has dropped down and disappeared .Here’s another bird motif doing the same disappearing act .Feet and belly gone. This house in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston is nearly 85 years, so you can expect some settling and shifting on its foundation . But even brand new homes can have walls that are out of whack . This beautiful pattern is by Cole & Son and is called Hummingbirds – it’s very popular and has been around more than 100 years … that’s older than the house!
Before. Note that those vertical lines on the wall are cast by the macrame light fixture. You also see bench seating with storage underneath . There will be a wall-mounted table in the center . The wainscoting / chair rail is high enough to keep any food splashes or sticky fingers from staining the wallpaper . Finished .
Before shot of accent wall in little boy’s room in a nicely renovated 1920’s home in the Houston Heights . Done. This is a good background wallpaper pattern , because the colors are muted and the design is overall and relatively calm. Bunk beds will be coming soon.The little tyke is in to all things nautical , so whales and a little whimsey are just the ticket. Waves , whales , turtles , fish , turbulent seas … this looks like an artist’s ink or pencil drawing . The design is ” Melville ” and it’s by Cole & Son , a British manufacturer known for good quality and affordable non-woven paste-the-wall wallpapers . Their designs run the gamut from traditional to fun to even a bit kooky .
This happens not infrequently, and it’s puzzling to me. At the top of the wall, the pattern match drops down to the right.Yet at the center of the wall it matches perfectly.But get to the bottom of the wall and it drops again, but this time to the left.
Yes, some papers do stretch / expand when they get wet with paste. But that’s not the situation here, because this is A.) a non-woven material, which generally do not expand, and B.) every strip was treated the same way. In other words, if every strip is pasted, booked, and left to sit for the same length of time, ALL the strips should expand the same amount, right? And the pattern should match at the top, middle, and bottom. Right?
But even that argument doesn’t apply, because this, again, is a NW / non-expansion material, and, besides, I didn’t paste the wallpaper but pasted the wall instead. So the material had no chance to get wet or swollen with paste.
I believe this is a factory trimming issue. Somewhere along the line, the trimmers got off-track, or started trimming on the bias, just enough to throw off the pattern match.
In cases like this, the rule of thumb industry standard is to match the pattern as best as possible at eye level (middle of the wall) and let nature take its course, as they say, on the upper and lower sections.
Luckily this particular pattern only had one motif area that matched across the seams, and there were only three of those per the height of each strip. So the two slight mis-matches were both way above and below eye level, so not very noticeable.
This pattern is called Palm Leaves and is by Cole & Son . Other than this printing snafu, it’s a good quality wallpaper. See previous post
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