Just A Whisper Of Color And Texture

Dining room in the Oak Forest area of Houston, before. All white and crisp – but bland .

Here with just a touch of color and texture . The homeowner took my suggestion to use an embossed vinyl faux grasscloth product, which is very consistent in color .
The problem with real grasscloth is that so very often there are disappointing color variations between strips , even if they come off the same roll . We call this shading and paneling . Do a search here to see previous posts about this.
Note that with both materials you will see the seams. With this faux material, once you got 3′ away, you can’t see the seams at all.

The paper along the top of the wainscoting chair rail is to prevent my wallpaper primer from splattering onto the molding . I do the same for baseboards and bathroom backsplash es .

Opposite corner done.

Close-up showing the realistic texture of the vinyl product .

This is by Designer Wallpapers and was purchased from the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village , by Dorota , who has been selling wallpaper for 25+ years and is THE expert on helping you select your perfect pattern .

Brightening a Breakfast Area

Breakfast nook before. The blue is a pretty color. But …

… the wallpaper is so much brighter and lighter.
The homeowners will have the banquette painted (still deciding on what color) and a cushion made for the seat (still deciding on color and pattern).

The rest of the home has a strong mid-century modern feel, so this mod pattern and colorway fit right in.
The gold is slightly metallic.

The brand is Designer Wallpapers. It’s a traditional wallpaper material, and I like this brand a lot.
The home is in the far north east Heights area of Houston.

Making A Corner Look Straight When It’s Not

Here I’m hanging wallpaper from right to left, working around this corner. I’ve wrapped the paper 1/8″ around the corner, and then cut a new piece that will overlap that 1/8″ and continue to move to the left. (Search here to learn more about turning inside corners.)
This is a 100 year old house, and this corner is way off-plumb – on both the right side and the left side. The chair rail, however, is perfectly level.
Here, the pattern matches nicely at the bottom of the wall. But as it moves up, the crooked corner takes over, and the pattern becomes mis-aligned.
By hanging the paper crooked, I can match the wallpaper pattern perfectly in the corner. But that will skew the left edge of this new strip off-plumb by slanting it to the right. That means that every subsequent strip will track off-plumb … and the motif at the top of the chair rail will start to climb uphill.
Since the chair rail is so prominently visible, I think it’s more important for the pattern motif to be straight along the chair rail, than to be perfectly matched in the corner.

But I didn’t like the way the pattern was getting un-matched at the upper part of the wall. I thought I could make it look better.
This design gave me something to fiddle with.
One option was to cut the paper vertically between the two rows of “swoops.” Then I could match the pattern in the corner, and pull the excess paper to the left, overlapping one strip on top of the other about 1/4″ at the top and tapering down to nothing at the chair rail. It’s a thin paper in a room with not-great lighting, so this overlapped lip would not be very noticeable. Still, I thought I could make it look better.

I could make the overlap invisible by trimming the paper along the design. Here I’ve removed that corner piece.

On the left is the strip I’ve cut off.

Here I’m putting the strip into place, and making sure that the pattern matches nicely in the corner. This pushes the upper part of this cut strip further to the left, so it overlaps the other strip of paper just a little
Now, instead of a visible straight overlap the full height of the strip, the overlap comes along the rounded edges of the design. That black line disguises the overlap beautifully!

Here it is nicely matched in the corner, with invisible overlap along the curved black line.
The excess still needs to be trimmed off at the ceiling and chair rail.

Mission accomplished! The design matches nicely in the corner, the paper moving to the left is hung perfectly plumb, and the motifs are all at their proper heights along the chair rail and ceiling.

This fun retro mid-century modern pattern is by Designer Wallpapers.

Bright Cheery Accent Wall in New Home Bathroom

Perfectly centered wallpaper pattern on one accent wall over the sinks in a master bathroom.

Th manufacturer is Designer Wallpapers

A fresh, clean look for a master bath in a new home in the Cypress neighborhood of far northwest Houston.

You don’t see a lot of accent walls in bathrooms; usually I recommend that baths look better with all the walls papered. But I have to admit, once the homeowner adds the mirrors and light fixtures, this will be a crisp, fun look.

this paper was purchased through the showroom at the brand new Ballard Designs brick-and-mortar store on W. Gray in the River Oaks / Montrose neighborhood of Houston.

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Old World Look for a Long Master Bedroom Accent Wall

Originally, the homeowner wasn’t “really” thinking about adding wallpaper to her master bedroom. But, in the back of her mind, she must have been “kinda” thinking about it, because, after I finished measuring several bathrooms in the home and was poised to leave, she hauled me into the bedroom and asked what could be done to create more of a haven.

I pulled out some samples of patterns I have hung in other homes, and she immediately zeroed in on this one. My sample was the navy blue colorway, but she grasped that wallpaper comes in different color options, and was able to envision this in a softer color to coordinate with the rest of the walls. (Note that that hot pink is a protective plastic sheet – not the color of the headboard!)

To me, the pattern looks like architectural details from old Roman ruins. The distant photos distort the design a bit, so please look at the close up to get a better idea.

Usually I will place a design like this in the middle of the wall. But in the case of this 18′ wide wall, the bed was not centered on the wall, nor was the chandelier. In addition, there curtains on either side of the wall that obscured the corners.

So I opted to center the circular design motif on the chandelier. This meant the bed had to be moved to the right … a whole 3″. This way, as you walk out of the master bathroom, you see the chandelier, the headboard, and the wallpaper design all synced up vertically.

The pattern doesn’t hit the wall uniformly on the right and left sides of the wall, but the drapes cover that. And, on a wall this wide with lots of furniture in front of it, who cares, anyway?!

The wallpaper is by Designer Wallpapers, one of my favorite companies, and was bought at Southwestern Paint. See link on the right for where to purchase wallpaper in Houston. This home is in Katy.

Updating A ’90’s Bathroom

Resembling a watercolor painting, this wallpaper looks even better in person. The colors are gorgeous, and the pattern is invigorating. The homeowner is in love with this update to her 30 year old guest bathroom in the Katy neighborhood of Houston.

This is the finished look to the room in yesterday’s post. The wallpaper is by Designer Wallpapers, a company that makes very good quality paper. It was purchased from Southwestern Paint (see Where To Buy Wallpaper link on the right).

Wildflowers Growing Up The Walls

Although I can’t tell if these are wildflowers or weeds, I really like this pattern. The homeowner does, too!

The original wallpaper in this hall bathroom was dark and dated back to the ’90’s. It had held up well, though. But the homeowner was ready for something new and fresh.

The original wallpaper was hung when the house was new, and was placed directly on the drywall with no primer. That bode badly, but – once I went to work on it, it stripped off relatively easily, and with no damage to the wall. It DID take most of a day, though, to strip both the large sink room and the large potty room.

Then I primed with Roman’s Pro 977 Ultra Prime, specifically formulated for wallpaper.

This is by Designer Wallpapers, and is a heavier non-woven material. It can be hung via the paste-the-wall method – but that works better on single accent walls. For this bathroom, with it’s corners and vanity and doors, I chose to paste the paper, which makes it more flexible, and easier to work into tight areas.

This home is in Katy (far west Houston). I hung paper in their entry a few years back, and was tickled when the homeowner called me to do some more rooms (additional posts to follow).

She also used the same gal to help her select and purchase her perfect paper – Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby, my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price. (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.

Complimenting Artwork With Wallpaper

This all-white master bedroom definitely needed perking up. The homeowners also wanted to coordinate with the large painting you see on the right.

This salmon-colored accent wall fills the bill!

Once the bed gets put back in place, the soft grey wooden headboard will be set off nicely against the adventurous wallpaper.

I say the pattern looks like stock market ticker-tape, or the control panel of a space ship. Take look at the close-up – how would you like to try to find that pattern match from one strip to the next?!

The townhome is brand new, and is in the Timbergrove area of central Houston. The paper is by Designer Wallpapers, and was very nice to work with, and will hold up nicely over time.

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.

Basket Weave Wallpaper Pattern on a Bedroom Accent Wall

For this accent / feature wall of Grandma’s bedroom in a very contemporary new home in the West U. area of Houston, the homeowner wanted something fun but not too edgy (Grandma’s gonna sleep in there, after all! 🙂 ). Plus she wanted to pull in colors from other rooms, particularly navy blue, as well as coordinate with the tufted headboard (grey) and upholstered bench (navy). And a little Asian flavor wouldn’t hurt.

Here’s a pattern that fills the bill! The hatch design is reminiscent of a woven bamboo mat. The navy background coordinates with the bench, as well as fabrics in other rooms of the house, and the grey and silver accents work perfectly with the tufted headboard. The design is contemporary, but not overwhelmingly so. Its surface is vinyl, but it has a velvet-like feel, and I believe it will help absorb sound, too.

The homeowner took my recommendation and visited Dorota (read below), who helped her track down this perfect fit!

The material is non-woven, and I hung it using the paste-the-wall technique. The backing and edges of this dark paper were white, so I ran a chalk pastel crayon along them to disguise the light color.

This wallpaper pattern is by Designer Wallpapers, and 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.

Most of the furniture and accessories are from High Fashion Home near downtown Houston.

Modern Master Bedroom – Accent Wall

This large master bedroom in a new home near the West U neighborhood of Houston looked might snazzy decked out with its furniture and accessories from High Fashion Home. Yet it pretty much looked like a showroom – lacking warmth and individuality. Wallpaper on just one accent wall changed all that!

This fun design is unusual because it’s horizontal rather than the more typical vertical. It is by Designer Wallpapers. It is a thick and fairly stiff non-woven material, and could be hung by the paste-the-wall or the paste-the-material methods. In this room, I used a little of both. (The paper behaved better when pasted, but when going around the windows, to avoid getting paste on them, I pasted the wall.)

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.