This silver cork wallpaper is stiff and thick, and prone to flaking off the surface. Here you see where a bit of silver has come off, revealing the brown backing. It’s really part of “the look,” but I didn’t like it. So I cut a tiny fill-in piece from some scrap material, adhered it with clear silicone caulk, and – voilà! Invisible!
This cork wallcovering is stiff and brittle, and prone to flaking off the surface. At the factory, there was some kind of ding, and so, to hold the cork to the backing, the workers added this patch. Because the material is thick and rough, the outline of this patch will not show through to the surface. In fact, there were several places where two strips of wallpaper had been spliced together, with a full-width patch across the back. I generally go ahead and use these pieces, since the patch is not detectable from the front.
In the case of this little ding, though, since the odd piece does stick up from the surface(2nd photo), and it was the only little bit that did that in the whole room, I thought it would be too visible, so I opted to not use this strip of wallpaper.
At first, I didn’t think the contemporary feel of this metallic wallpaper would look good with the homeowner’s traditional style furniture, including this family heirloom console vanity base. But once the room was finished – it’s darned handsome!
Hard to see in the second photo, but there was a gap of only about 1/4″ on either side of the granite countertop. And about 1″ between the wooden cabinet and the wall. It definitely took some gymnastics and ingenuity to get the wallpaper into those spaces and smoothed against the wall.
Cork is a natural material, and you should expect some inconsistencies in color, pattern, and texture. It’s also lots thicker than most papers, so seams will be more visible.
The home is in the West University neighborhood of central Houston.
This “Tuscan View” hand-painted mural was well done, but the new homeowners didn’t love it. They wanted the family room of their 1970’s era ranch-style home to coordinate with the living room (which I papered and blogged about a few months ago – Search on words like “cork” and “damask” to see pics).
The new wallpaper is a silver cork product with a large white damask pattern printed on top. It is a cross between contemporary (silver) and traditional (damask), and adds glamor (silver) and elegance (damask) all at the same time.
I hung this for a family with young children in the Pasadena neighborhood of Houston. This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and 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.
Wallpaper looks best when it arrives from the vendor with its edges just as the manufacturer trimmed them. Then you can count on it to seam up on the wall perfectly.
But it’s common for packages of wallpaper to get slammed around during shipping. This usually affects the edges, creating bashed areas that don’t look good on your walls.
Natural materials (cork, as pictured above, or grasscloth, or other natural, textured materials) – these materials are particularly susceptible to dents and fraying edges.
To nip this bud before it becomes a thorny rose, many manufacturers are placing these round protective collars (see photo) on the ends of their product, before packing for shipping.
They work pretty well. Plus, the collars themselves are made of paper, and can go into the recycling bin.
The homeowners originally sought grasscloth for this accent wall in the home office. But I talked them out of it, due to the unpleasant shading and color variation issues (click on the page to the right to read more). I showed them a sample of this white-washed cork wallpaper, and they were immediately smitten.
The previous time I hung this, the material was very homogeneous in color.
But this time, it was immediately evident that there was a darker band running down the left half of the roll, and a lighter band along the right side. Note that this is not considered a defect (even though it is obviously a problem stemming from the factory). It is considered part of the “inherent beauty of these natural materials.” Meaning, you can’t return it and expect to get your money back.
Cutting strips as they come off the roll and hanging them next to each other will result in abrupt color differences between strips – as you see in the top photo. One way to minimize that is to hang every other strip upside down, so you are then putting the dark side next to it’s dark counterpart on the previously hung strip.
In this case, because the darker areas were so dark and wide, this would have resulted in the wall having a striped look. Not what the homeowners were shooting for.
The wall was exactly 12′ wide, and the material is 3′ wide, so we needed four strips to cover the width of the wall.
We had three double-roll bolts. Each 24′ long bolt will give you two 9′ strips. Thus we needed two double rolls to cover this wall. That left us with one bolt in excess.
That turned out to be a good thing – having extra paper. The color shading was bad in one bolt, noticeable in another bolt, and the third bolt was pretty homogeneous in color.
I rejected the bolt with the worst shading. Thank goodness the client ordered a little extra paper! The bolt with the second-worst shading, I discovered that if I rolled it backwards, the shading was less severe in the inner portion.
So I took two strips off this bolt from the inside-out.
So now that gave me two strips from the first roll that were pretty homogenous. Plus two strips from the second bolt that were passable.
How to keep the color as uniform a possible across the 12′ wide wall?
II knew I wanted to place the two strips from the first, “best” bolt in the center of the wall. If I hung one right-side-up, and the next one up-side-down, keeping the darker area toward the center, the color differences would be less noticeable.
But I still had to cover 3′ width on either side of those two center strips.
One strip equaled 3′ width. So one 3′ wide strip on either side of those two center strips.
One plan, I contemplated cutting each of those the two 3′ (36″) wide strips from the second bolt into 18″ widths. Hang one right-side-up and the other upside-down. That would break up any color variations into less noticeable panels.
Only problem was, then there would be two 36″ wide chunks of material in the middle, flanked by two 18″ wide chunks on either side. I thought that would be too inconsistant, visually.
It would look better to keep all the widths the same, at 36.”
The two strips I had taken off that second double roll bolt had some shading issues, with the left side being darker than the right side. I reasoned that it would be less noticeable if the darker, shaded area, was toward the outer corners – sort of as if sunlight or furniture or window shutters were casting shadows.
So I plotted to use a full 36″ wide strip on either side of the center strips. I would position them so that the lighter side of each strip was toward the center – toward those two originally-placed strips. This meant placing one right-side-up and the other one upside-down.
Thus the darker edge of the strips would be situated toward the corners of the wall – a logical place for shadows and light to play tricks on the eye.
That’s what I ended up doing. And the finished wall does really look very homogeneous!
Yes, I am quite guilty of over-thinking way more than I should. But I think the client deserves the best look possible. And, to be honest, all this plotting and engineering is a big part of the fun of hanging wallpaper!
I’ve tacked two strips of this cork wallpaper to the wall. The obvious thing you see is the color difference between the two strips where they meet in the center of the wall.
But look more closely and you will notice that there is an abrupt shading difference between the left and right sides of each bolt. And in the strip on the left, the dark left side is even darker at the top of the bolt, than several feet down as you move toward the floor.
These effects are called shading and paneling and color variations. It’s important to note that these are not considered “defects,” but are deemed to be the “inherent beauty of the natural materials.” In other words, if you don’t like that paneled look, they are not going to give you your money back.
There are some tricks to minimize these effects when the paper is on the wall. I will delve into those in another post … at some point.
During the pandemic, the man and wife are both working from home … in the same improvised home office … and getting on each other’s nerves. The lady of the house decreed it’s time for the guy to move out!
So they commandeered the home’s original living room and are turning it into an office for him.
They wanted something to warm the look of the four all-white walls, while maintaining an air of professionalism and business, and at the same time being a choice that could transition to another use, once the pandemic ends and the room no longer needs to serve as an office.
This white-washed cork wallpaper with flecks of gold is the perfect choice for an accent wall behind the man’s desk.
As with all natural material wallpapers, you can expect shading and color variations between and even within strips. This one turned out pretty homogeneous.
I don’t have information on the brand or manufacturer. The material is natural cork, which is applied to the paper backing in bocks approximately 6″ square. It comes 3′ wide x 24′ long, and is a paste-the-material product.
The rather contemporary home is located in Bellaire (Houston).
What a pretty bathroom to walk into! The bottom third of the walls is painted semi-gloss black, and there is a thin gold chair rail separating it from the wallpaper. The overall look is stunning.
The silvery metallic wallpaper coordinates beautifully with the silver and gold cork I hung in the adjoining master bedroom. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2019/03/28/singular-and-exotic-metallic-cork-damask-in-a-river-oaks-master-bedroom/
This master bathroom is in a home in River Oaks (Houston). The wallpaper manufacturer is Anderson Prints, in their EcoChic line. It 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.
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