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

Shimmery Geometric in a Bellaire Powder Room (Harvey Flooded House)

I wallpapered the nurseries for this client in her two previous homes. (Don’t ask me how old the kids are now! 🙂 ) Her current home in Bellaire was flooded during Hurricane Harvey. During the rebuild, this homeowner took the occasion to freshen and update the look of her ’90’s era home.

This shiny, curvy geometric wallpaper pattern fills the bill perfectly. The soft silver color compliments the new distressed grey wood-look floor tiles, and the sheen and design play wonderfully off the new contemporary chandelier (sorry, no picture!).

I usually have a long lead time, but this client was planning to host a party early next month and wanted her paper up, so I figured it was better to stay away from Black Friday shopping and hang wallpaper instead. 🙂 The homeowner was out of town, but she was able to let me in each day via remote-access, and I had the privilege of working in peace and quiet with no distractions or worries about disturbing the family.

That peace and quiet enabled me to do some intricate things… things that make the job look better, but that the average person wouldn’t be able to put a finger on. Like I say … something that is easy to LOOK at, but that was tricky and time consuming for me to PLOT AND EXECUTE.

For instance, you will notice that the wallpaper pattern is balanced / centered perfectly behind the sink / faucet. And that funny little alcove that the toilet is recessed into (what architect thinks these things up, to accentuate the toilet with it’s own little niche?!)… It took a fair amount of engineering to lay everything out so that the pattern would fall evenly above the niche and then down either side. Then the back wall was hung, with care taken that the pattern matched up with the pattern on the header above, as well as the walls on either side.

This meant that the pattern DIDN’T match on either the right or left corners inside the niche, nor the horizontal corner at the top back. But these areas are not very noticeable. I felt it was more important to make the pattern match when it is seen by someone who is standing outside the room and walking in – which is the view you see in the photograph.

This room also had another “hidden corner” (not shown) where I elected to allow the pattern to not match. This gave me the freedom to balance / center the design on the vanity and sink, and, as explained above, in the toilet niche.

Hard to explain, and hard for you readers to follow and envision. But the end result is a room with several perfectly balanced focal points, and a really professional look. I am so happy that I was able to invest the time to pull all this together. The finished room looks amazing.

This wallpaper pattern is by York, in their “Designer Series.” It is a textured vinyl product on a thin, flexible non-woven backing, and was a joy to work with. It was pretty resistant to creases, and it will hold up against water splashes better than other types of paper – a good choice for this powder room. It is designed to strip off the wall easily down the road when it’s time to redecorate. I have hung this twice before, in two different colors.

This 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.

Large Gold Damask on a Bedroom Accent Wall

This young couple is in a brand new, very contemporary home in the eastern edge of the Houston Heights. Just about every surface in the home is white. WHITE. The over-scaled refurbished tufted leather headboard (along with a few other dark wood furniture pieces (not shown) in the master bedroom make a handsomely bold contrast.

But, still, the room SCREAMED for relief from all that white.

This gold-on-aqua damask wallpaper pattern came to the rescue! The soft aqua color softens the feel of the stark-white room – but doesn’t jar with the white theme. The shiny gold in the design adds a contemporary feel with just a touch of glam – but doesn’t upstage the fabulous headboard.

As the wallpaper went up, I noticed a difference in color between the right edge of one strip and the left edge of the next strip. (This is called shading.) The photos show it a little, but it was more pronounced when seen in person. I didn’t think it looked good, so I followed the 3-strip rule and put up three strips, then went to get the homeowner for approval.

She thought the wall looked gorgeous. In fact, even when I put my hand on the medallions with different shades on either side of the seam, she said she couldn’t see anything. She loves it, and that’s what counts!

Once the bed gets pushed back against the wall, the large medallions will be a little more in perspective. They are a good size for the scale of the wall and the headboard.

This wallpaper is in the “Designer Series” by York. It’s a non-woven product, and can be hung by paste-the-wall or paste-the-paper. I pasted the wall, but I think that pasting the paper would have worked a little better (It makes the paper more pliable.).

The homeowners bought this paper on-line from Arhaus.com. Arhaus also has a couple of showrooms / retail stores in Houston. The homeowners bought their paper before our initial consultation (I like to measure before they buy, so they get the proper amount). I was thrilled that – for once! – the proper amount of wallpaper was purchased.

The homeowner loves her master bedroom accent wall so much, she is now thinking of papering their powder room. 🙂

Shiny Geometric Wallpaper Pattern Brings Life to a Dark, Dull Powder Room

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This retired couple near the Montrose neighborhood of Houston has a 15-year-old home that is, along with their furnishings, pretty traditional. They wanted to update with wallpaper, but didn’t want the new look to clash with the rest of their house. Going a little wild in the powder room is a great way to do this, because you only see the contemporary look when you are in the powder room – the rest of the time, the door is closed.

But now that the new paper is up, they will surely want to keep the door open!

This powder room was originally painted a deep, murky aqua/teal. Despite the high ceilings and large footprint, the matt finish and dark color made the room look small, and it definitely was lacking in personality.

The first day, I skim-floated the textured walls to smooth them (see first photo). The second day, the paper went up. The new wallpaper sports a fluid, interlocking geometric pattern that is in the same color family as the original paint, but much lighter, and the shiny surface adds a lot of light and dazzle.

Interestingly, I hung this same pattern, but in a darker color, just last week. It is lovely to work with. The walls in this room were pretty off-plumb, and also bowed, which can be Hell with a rigid geometric design. But I used some tricks to make the pattern look like it’s hanging straight and plumb. The homeowners were very happy with the finished room.

This wallpaper pattern is by York, in their Designer Series, and was bought at below retail price from Dorota Hartwig at the Sherwin-Williams on University in the Rice Village.  Wed-Sat.   She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.   (713) 529-6515