Luminous Branches Breathe Life Into Dining Room

Before

The homeowners had this elegant wainscoting added to the bottom of their dining room when the house was built . But for seven years, the room was bland and boring . The new crystal chandelier adds glamor , but the room is still lacking .

Wallpaper to the rescue!

Now there’s soft color and soft pattern . And a little gold shimmer !

I’m encouraging the homeowners to paint that band of wall under the tray ceiling a very soft aqua color, to meld with the misty feel of the wallpaper .

It’s a soft aqua color , but enough to stand out against the woodwork . Now you see the beautiful moldings and trim work .

South wall before

South wall done

I positioned the tree pattern to fall down the mid-point of this space between the two windows .

This shot with the chandelier dimmer turned down allows you to see the pattern more fully.

This wallpaper pattern is called Luminous Branches and is by York , one of my favorite brands , in their Designer Series line.
The material has a slight raised / embossed / textured effect. It’s a non-woven product, so is strong , durable , stain-resistant , and designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece and with no damage to the wall when you redecorate later.
Non-wovens can be hung by the paste the wall method , but I generally prefer to paste the paper . NW requires no booking / soaking time , so they install a little faster , with no worries about shrinking or gaps at the seams . In fact, the seams are near-invisible .
The home is in the Braes Heights area of Houston

Cute, Sweet Pink & Blue Hallway

This is one of those houses that has a lot of crystal and glitter. The little girl’s bedroom has a LOT of crystal, glitter – and PINK.

So this hallway, which leads to both the girl’s room and to a glitzy guest bedroom, is fittingly outfitted with a navy-floral-on-pink wallpaper pattern. The colors show up much better in real life than on my phone camera shots.

The wallpaper is by designer Caitlin Wilson, made by York, in their Sure Strip line, and is one of my favorite wallpapers. It is a pre-pasted material. It is designed to strip off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate.

Shimmery Dragon Glass Bead Wallpaper on Bedroom Accent Wall

Just about everything in this gal’s new home is glimmer, mirror, crystal, and sheen. So no question that the accent wall in the master bedroom should be the same.

This design is printed on a pearlescent silver background, and features swirling dragon motifs made of tiny real glass beads. Viewed with light coming from an angle (window on the south wall, for instance, or a bedside table lamp), the wallpaper has a real glitter effect.

The wallpaper is by Osborn & Little, and is in the line by designer Matthew Williamson. It is a vinyl-covered non-woven material, and can be hung by either the paste-the-wall method or the paste-the-paper method (which is what I opted for).

The home is in the Braeswood / Meyerland / Braes Heights / Willowbend / Willow Meadows neighborhood of south west Houston. This area was heavily devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The home sits right on the Buffalo Bayou, and was built after that disaster, and situated quite high up.

Sparkly Pink for a Little Girl’s Bathroom

Everything in Mom’s room has a bit of shimmer, mirror, crystal, rhinestone, or sheen. The little girl’s room is no different – except add in a large dose of pink.

So this pink damask wallpaper pattern with its highlights of silver glitter are the perfect compliment for two accent walls in her bathroom.

One was the mirror wall over the sink (not pictured) and the other was the recessed alcove wall behind the toilet.

This is an embossed (textured) vinyl product on a paper substrate, by Royal House. The home is right along Braes Bayou, in the Braes Heights / Stella Link area of Houston.

Faces in Unexpected Places

How’s this for something no one else is gonna have?! The homeowner of this Galleria-area home in Houston is a big-personality gal, recently divorced, and she wants her new home to reflect who she is. Everything in the house that could have glitter, shimmer, mirror, or glitz does – including the dog bed and the kitchen backsplash.

This wallpaper in the adjoining powder room (with a huge crystal chandelier!) fits right in with that new life.

This is a sort of mural, composed of rectangular panels about 3′ wide x 2′ high. It was bought on-line, and came with no information or installation instructions.

It was a paper substrate, and was meant to be butted at the seams, as opposed to overlapped, as many mural panels are. After experimenting, I found that a powdered wheat or cellulose paste hydrated the paper best, and that a little of my traditional wallpaper paste added to the mix helped hold the paper tightly to the wall and minimize shrinkage as the panels dried.

The paper curled badly when it was wet with the paste (see third photo), which made it difficult to paste it, book it, and then get it to the wall.

It also expanded a lot when it got wet – almost an inch in each direction. Uneven expansion meant that it developed large wrinkles and warps that were difficult to remove.

In addition, the walls were bowed and uneven in the corners, the walls were not plumb, the ceiling was not level, the crown molding was at different heights on different walls, and we didn’t have a lot of paper to play with.

It took a lot of work to keep the pattern matched as well as possible in the corners, to keep the pattern running at the right point below the crown molding, to eliminate the aforementioned wrinkles, to butt the panels, to minimize white showing at the seams due to the panels drying and shrinking, the paper getting saturated and tearing or dragging when I tried to trim it, and lots more challenges.

All this could have been easier if the manufacturer had chosen a better substrate to print on. But – well, hey, we’ve got a digital printer, so let’s just dig up some paper stock, print cool designs on it, and market it as wallpaper.

Actually, this material worked out pretty well in this small powder room. But I would not want to paper a large, wide wall with it.

Most companies who make murals like this, on this type of thin paper substrate, allow for the edges to be overlapped about 3/8″ at each seam. This allows the installer to make adjustments for wonky walls and ceilings, and it eliminates the gapping at seams as paper dries and shrinks. It does, however, leave a ridge along each seam where the edges are overlapped.

Overall, though, I was not unhappy with this product in this room. And working out all the challenges was mighty fun. I was glad to have a nice, quiet, empty house to do all this in. All in all, this medium-sized powder room that I had prepped the weekend before, took me nine hours to hang.

Shimmer and Glimmer in a River Oaks New Build

Here is a brand-new, very contemporary home in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston. The lady of the house definitely has a streak of glam, because there are touches of glitter, shimmer, gilt, mirror, crystal, pearl, and more throughout the house.

This textured, shiny gold wallpaper fits right in! I hung this on one wall in the entry of the home.

The material is an embossed vinyl on a non-woven backing, and can be hung by the paste-the-wall method or the paste-the-paper method (which is what I did). The instructions say that if you follow the directions in prepping the wall and hanging the paper, it will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate.

This design is by Deiter Larger, and is made by Marburg, a German company, and distributed by Sancar in New York City. It was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – Dorota Hartwig at Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village, (713) 529-6515.  She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Stacks of Blocks in a Bellaire Powder Room

This 30-year old home was flooded last August during Hurricane Harvey, and today is just a couple of weeks from being finished with the rebuild. This gold-on-black stacked-block pattern was chosen to help bring a more contemporary look to the home, as well as pump up the drama factor – a stunning gold-on-black console-style vanity and a huge, jaw-dropping crystal chandelier will be installed next week. I hope they send me photos!

Keeping this very rigid pattern plumb and level was a bit of a challenge, especially since all the walls were out of plumb. At the top of the second photo you see my horizontal line marking where I wanted the top gold line to fall. This line helped me keep the pattern perfectly aligned all the way around the room.

This paper is by York Wall, in their Sure Strip line. It is a non-woven material, but is thin and soft and pliable, and was a delight to work with. You could paste the wall to install, but I chose to paste the paper, because it makes the material more flexible and easier to work with and easier to keep clean. I wouldn’t mind hanging this product every day!

The wallpaper 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.

The interior designer for this home is Wes Satterwhite, of Silver Oak Consulting, here in Houston. He’s been overseeing much of the selections of finishes, paint colors, hardware, cabinets, flooring, drapes, etc., from the very beginning.