Versace Wallpaper Powder Room Revisited

I hung this dramatic gold-on-black wallpaper about three years ago, and am back to do two more rooms, so took the opportunity to snap a coupla photos.

Looks amazing with the black sink and toilet, and ornate gold faucet set. Plus the bamboo-look framed mirror.

Close up, this material looks like embroidered stitching on menswear textured background. The glitter and shimmer adds even more pizzazz!
This non-woven wallpaper is by Versace, and the home is in the Garden Oaks area of Houston.

Tropical Foliage Re-Do – Peel & Stick Debacle UnDone

Re my previous post about an under-the-stairs powder room that the homeowners attempted to install an argumentative peel & stick material … here is the finished room after I stripped off the P&S, smoothed the walls, and hung the new wallpaper choice. I engineered to place the sole philodendron leaf down the center of the ceiling.

Where the under-the-stairs ceiling met the area over the door, the two surfaces came together in a very sharp angle. It was difficult to get in there and work, and to get the paper tight into the joint. Fingers can be too fat, so this is where tools can squeeze in there and save the day. This is also my kill point . Do a search here on that term for more info. A long story and maybe an hour or more of work, but you will note that there are no pattern mis-matches here. The homeowners were out of town, so I felt unpressured and could take as long as I needed to make these three areas look seamless.

I love the hand-painted, water colory look of this pattern.

This photo shows the joint where the walls meet the sloped under-the-stairs ceiling. A wallpaper pattern will never match perfectly in these situations. At first, I tried a few tricks to ” fool the eye .” But I decided it looked crisper and less distracting to just trim the two papers where they met. Here, we had the advantage that the tropical foliage pattern was busy enough that, I mean, really, when you step three feet back, who’s gonna notice a minor pattern mis-match, anyway? The pattern does match in the corners on either side behind the toilet, though (see photo). Even though this only 4.5″ high, it does lend subtle continuity to the room.

When I see Candice Olson, I fast forward to glitz and glam and glitter and shimmer. Here her tropical foliage design is a bit more main stream. York is the mother company, and I love their products.

This home is in the Heights neighborhood of central Houston.

Mottley Gold Damask in River Oaks Dining Room

The lady of the house likes glitter and bling, but didn’t want to over do it in the dining room. She also didn’t want anything too rigid or precise.

This rather scratchy, indistinct damask by York works perfectly. There’s a bit of glitter, but not overwhelming, plus a light texture that adds a pleasing effect.

This is a non-woven material, and so could be hung using the paste-the-wall method, which works nicely for an accent / feature wall like this.

In the last photo, you see me measuring off the strips, rolling them backwards (to prevent the surface from bopping into the pasted wall), and lining them up in the order they will be hung on the wall. Because I pasted the wall, there was no need for me to haul in my big work / pasting table. The PTW method is also very clean, because pastes goes on the wall only, so no messy wet scraps and no need to wipe paste off the woodwork.

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.

Stormy Texture on Master Bedroom Accent Wall

This homeowner is all about glitz and sparkle and glitter, and originally she sought something of that ilk for the accent wall behind the headboard in their master bedroom. But she realized that if she toned down the wall, then the other aspects of the room (furniture, bedding, artwork) would stand out more.

So she went for this. I think it looks like roiling storm clouds rolling across the room. There is just enough glitter to make the wall sparkle in a subtle glow.

The pattern is by Exclusive Wallcoverings. It is an embossed (textured – see close-up shot) vinyl on a non-woven backing. I used the paste-the-wall installation method.

In the “before” photo, you see me rolling out the bolts to get a bead on the design, as well as the pattern match and placement, and measure out and cut my strips.

With PTW, it works best to roll your strips backward (from bottom up, and with the substrate facing out). Then, when you take these to the pasted wall, there is little chance of paste getting on the face of the wallpaper.

The home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston.

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.

Purple & Silver Transformation for Gal’s Bedroom

This 20-something gal’s bedroom is filled with glitter, sparkle, and mirrored furniture. She wanted to pull in the color purple, and, with help of my suggested source below, she found the perfect pattern, and it incorporated her favorite color, plus a bit of silver sheen thrown in!

This wallpaper went on one accent wall, behind the large, tufted headboard.

The photos are throwing off the perspective a bit. In person, you notice the circular and diamond design motifs much more than the vertical swipes. It’s a super look to finish this room.

This wallpaper pattern is by Wallquest, a good company, 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.

The home is in the Towne Lake neighborhood of northwest 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.

Gold-on-Black Versace Swirl Damask in a Powder Room

So you thought Versace was all about clothing and shoes … Well, that name is all over wallpaper, too!

The owner of this brand-new home in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston loves to entertain, and he wanted something in his powder room that would really rock the socks off his guests. As I like to say, you can get away with a lot of drama in a powder room – and he pulled it off!

This is a textured gold-and-black vinyl bonded to a non-woven backing. The material appears to have stitching (see close-up) – but that is just a design embossed into the thick vinyl.

What there IS that the homeowner was not expecting (bought from images viewed on-line, without seeing an actual sample) is a good bit of glitter.

There is just enough glimmer to reflect light and catch your eye, but not so much as to be overdone or gauche.