William Morris Pattern Makes for Welcoming Entry

Originally simply painted a rather dull and lackluster sorta orange, the homeowner chose this pattern to both brighten the entryway and make it feel welcoming.

Entry door wall primed and ready for wallpaper.

I love the columns on either side.
The black door and molding really stand out against the wallpaper.

The mom / grandmother described this as “elegantly soft.”
There will be artwork hanging on the walls, so it was important that the wallpaper pattern not overwhelm or take center stage. This Willow Boughs pattern will form a perfect backdrop for other focal points.

Close up.

Closer up, showing the light textured surface of this material.

The designer is William Morris , dating back to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and the Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts period. Morris & Co. is the manufacturer.
Morris makes two types of wallpaper – non-woven and the traditional British pulp . It’s important that this homeowner took my advice and selected the non-woven option. NW is much easier to work with. But also, since it has a high polyester content, it’s designed to strip off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate . It also is stronger and more stain-resistant than most other types of wallpaper . That’s good, because this family has three little kiddies running around!
The home is in the Braes Heights neighborhood of Houston .
installer

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.