Taken from the current issue of The Installer , the newsletter of the Wallcovering Installers Association ( WIA ).
” The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent
shelter-in-place mandates brought home as
never before how crucial interior décor is to our
everyday lives. Surrounded by our own walls,
we learned that bland, dull interiors make for
a boring and dull life, while vibrant interiors
create a sense of energy and liveliness. “
Summer 2022 issue
I love old things and old homes, so I’m always thrilled when someone preserves a historic (or just plain old “old”) home and updates or renovates it. Many bungalows in the Houston Heights have been lovingly rescued. And many others that are torn down are replaced with large new homes that fit the original architectural style(s) of the neighborhood.
Personally, I prefer traditional styles. And steer away from trends in decorating … if it’s in style now, it will be out of style in a short while. IMO that includes the current craze called ” Modern Farmhouse ,” as well as all-white color schemes, open floor plans, shiplap, and minimalist interiors.
This home in the Heights is doomed to be razed. By his holiday yard decorations, I can tell that the outgoing homeowner shares my sentiments.
This beautiful bathroom, featured in the November 2019 issue of Better Homes & Gardens magazine, was designed by Veronica Solomon of Casa Vilora Interiors, based out of Katy (Houston), Texas.
I have hung wallpaper for this gal, and can attest that she does stunning work. Congratulations for getting a full-page spread in this national magazine!
Here’s an eye-catching design reminiscent of agate stone. I have hung similar patterns, but this is the first that has a continuous horizontal striped effect.
It really expands the feel of this small powder room, by visually pushing the walls away.
The wallpaper is by Thibaut. The interior designer is Rachel Goetz, of Rachel Goetz Interiors. This home is in the Galleria neighborhood of Houston.
Phillip Jeffries’s “Rivets” pattern is popular and trendy. The wallpaper I hung today is Thibaut’s response to it.
Thibaut’s version offers the same texture and appeal of real natural fiber grasscloth, as well as three-dimensional squares that unite to form larger squares.
Thibaut’s version Union Square is better because:
1.) Less expensive
2.) Better color consistency (fewer paneling and shading issues)
3.) Squares form a more muted secondary pattern, so it’s much easier to live with (the pattern doesn’t hit you in the eye every time you look at a wall)
4.) Squares are positioned on the strips so the installer can easily manipulate the pattern to accommodate un-plumb walls and un-level ceilings.
5.) For similar reasons, the installer can “tweak” the design a bit to ensure favorable placement of the squares (to eliminate having to cut through any of the squares, or bend them around a corner). Read below.
6.) When it’s unavoidable to have to cut through the squares, the Thibaut 3-D material is much easier to get through with a blade or scissors than the PJ or the Schumacher products.
7.) The bolts are marked in the order they came off the printing press (see photo), so you can hang strips sequentially, to minimize shading and paneling (do a search here on those terms).
8.) Thibaut provides clear tips on how to work with natural materials and what to expect with the finished outcome.
9.) Thibaut offers to replace material lost to working around defects, and they will also reimburse an installer for (part) of his labor, if a product is defective.
10.) Other points which are escaping me right now. But suffice it to say, despite its grand reputation, Phillip Jeffries products are often extremely difficult to install, and disappointing in appearance, and customer service is basically, “We never had this problem before – it must be the installer’s fault.”
Thibaut, on the other hand, researches what it takes to make a good product, does test hangs, and, if there is a problem, Thibaut actually listens to feedback from us installers.
In the window photo, I did some tweaking to get the rivets to line up exactly over the middle of the window. It took some further tweaking to position the squares so they would march down either side of the window at the same distance from the edge.
How did I accomplish that? After much measuring and plotting and a few practice strips, I widened the distance between two sets of squares over the center of the window – by a full inch. 4.5″ instead of 3.5″ is a big difference, yet it is barely noticeable. What is more important is that the squares going down either side of the window are all 3/4″ from the edge.
This home is in the Briar Park neighborhood of Houston – interestingly enough, right next door to another home I papered a year or so ago, and a block away from another home I where I hung paper in the powder room and have more bathrooms to paper coming up … In fact, I have put wallpaper in a whole lot of homes in this one tiny neighborhood. Near Beltway 8 / Sam Houston Tollway and Briar Forest.
The interior designer is Layne Ogden of Layne Torsch Interiors.
This is a recently-finished home in a brand new development out Hockley way – far northwest Houston. Like most new construction these days, everything started out white or vanilla.
But the homeowner – who is also an interior designer – likes things to feel both livelier and cozier. She has beautiful stained wooden furniture to warm things up, and she displays a number of treasured items and collectibles to add personality.
For the walls, she’s added color. Not hit-you-in-the-face brights, but comfortable colors like “Peanut Shell” paint on the great room walls, and this deep rust colored wallpaper in a paisley print in the adjoining open kitchen area.
The room looks much better in person than in these photos. And the wallpaper working its way around the white cabinets and pantry door was striking!
The wallpaper pattern is named Driskill and is by Thibaut, one of my favorite brands. Thibaut makes lots of types of paper, but this one has the feel that I call “satiny.” The paper is quite malleable, which was good because this room had wonky walls and rounded corners that can throw things out of plumb and out of square. It also resists shrinking, so even when I needed to twist or stretch it into position, it held tightly to the wall, so no worries about teeny gaps showing white at the seams.
The interior designer for this job is Leona Rossy Interiors.
Here are some finished shots of the playroom I did a month ago. We ran short of paper* and had to have more custom-made.
*To be honest, I think the company shorted us … both the designer and I measured meticulously (it’s crazy expensive paper), and we both came out to the same yardage … I can’t see how we could have both been wrong.
The design is called “Dashes” and it’s by Rebecca Atwood. The interior designer for this room is Layne Torsche, of Layne Torsche Interiors in Houston.
The owner of this 1950’s ranch style home in the Highland Village neighborhood of Houston is an interior designer, and headed up the remodel of their hall bathroom. She found a perfect wallpaper to both imbue the room with a fun, crisp, contemporary feel, while coordinating precisely with the color of the glass shower tile.
The interior designer is Layne Torsch, of Layne Torsch Interiors.
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