I always love to see wallpaper featured in a national publication . BH&G often does. This particular issue is also full of color and pattern – a nice shift away from the all-white or all-grey , minimalist look popular these days. Not all the articles included brand / pattern number , but similar designs can be found easily enough, especially if you visit my favorite source Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village .Delightfully bold and dark works wonderfully in a small powder room . A little calmer . More Bohemian / Indian / Middle East vibe.Just please don’t get peel & stick . Ever. Read my info page link to the right.Reminds me of postage stamps . Beautiful Art Nouveau inspired design . Spoonflower makes lovely paper – as long as you get their pre-pasted smooth and not any other of their options. They have really innovative , fun patterns, too. installer houston
I’m always thrilled to see wallpaper featured in magazines – especially magazines that historically promote sparse , all-white interiors and décor . This February / March 2023 issue showcases a LOT of wallpaper – including right her on the front cover ! The magazine didn’t list much, if any, info about the patterns or brands. So please just enjoy the patterns and decorating elements. If you want to pursue one of these, I can hook you up with a merchant who can probably find it for you, or something similar. Whimsical but muted ” village ” pattern as backdrop for headboard accent wall . Note the use of nubby textured textiles to warm up this wintery room. Sweet roses . I hung this very pattern just a few months ago. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2022/06/26/romantic-vintage-look-rose-bedroom-accent-wall/ Shore birds in flight have been a popular theme . This is an obvious (and much more affordable ) riff on the $$$ ” Acanthus ” design by Schumacher . This one is a lot more playful , too, IMO.We’re entering a guest house / B&B / airBnB with several rental units having the same footprint , but different decorating. Look all the way to the left – a tiny snippet of wallpaper on the accent wall , nicely coordinated with the color of the cabinets , as well as complimentary to the pink-ish wall paint . Wheat wreaths on wheat wallpaper .Subtle stripes in a sleeping area . Note how nicely the installer centered / balanced the stripes on the headboard / focal wall . An earthy, natural pattern I hung not too long ago, and also have it coming up again. Looks like dandelion seedheads, maybe. Fun upward movement.Many ” Farmhouse ” styled homes these days are using tile that looks like this. But this backdrop is actually wallpaper . Showing how you can get the visual impact of patterned tile without the expense or permanent impact on your wall . Cute idea for the backs of narrow shelves . This is a clever look on stairs , too – I’d say mostly in ” artsy ” themed homes . This wall is actually made of ship-lap . But there are many wallpaper patterns out there that mimic the look of this popular decorating material . Particularly the Magnolia Home line by Joanna Gaines , made by York .More wallpaper masquerading as tile on this bar backsplash . Bright colorful butterflies . Same color scheme , different wallpaper pattern . Cheery lemon pattern . Here’s a similar one I did recently. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2022/11/11/picasso-slept-here-crazy-pattern-in-a-complicated-powder-room/Fun with green and leaves Moving from pattern to texture . Here you see natural fiber grasscloth flanking the entryway , as well as on the back wall . A fun Industrial Modern / Rustic look for this accent wall . Not sure if this is a plastic 3-D faux brick material , or wallpaper . But there are plenty of brick-look wallpapers available , many with light texture on the surface . For help tracking down something you love, contact Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams on University in the Rice Village. Call first and discuss your project. Wed – Sat (713) 529-6515 .Slightly ethnic look to this dark blue headboard accent wall in a guest bedroom .
Including right here on the cover! And a real coup! … A magazine that’s pretty much dedicated to the all-white or all-grey trend in decorating, as well as minimalism … it’s so exciting to see some pattern and color in the ” farmhouse ” themed homes. Let’s take a look …Textured grasscloth behind bookshelves in a living room .Two-tone classic toile on one wall as a background to a stairwell . It warms up the space, without hitting you in the face. Soft , cloud – like feel behind this credenza . Look carefully right above the baskets , and you’ll see an overlapped seam. Some commercial murals are hung like this, as well as the very popular patterns by Spoonflower , which is a budget-friendly and DIY – able , good quality material and brand . (But ONLY their ” prepasted smooth ” option. Do NOT get the ” traditional pebble ” nor their ” peel and stick . “More of the toile pattern , in the entry , with batten board wainscoting and a chair rail , in a mud room . Also called rear back door entry . : )Floral pattern in the laundry room . I’m getting lots of queries for wallpaper in laundries … must be trending right now!Soft two-tone floral in small bathroom .Textured grasscloth behind desk in home office .Apologies for the sideways image … WordPress used to be easy to use, and I could correct this. But they “upgraded” their program and made many, many features much more difficult to work with. I tried tutorials on how to fix this, but after reading and watching tons of info and videos, I gave up. It used to be just one click ! Anyway, note the cheery breakfast room. Colorful without being overwhelming . Closer picture. Very innovative use of floral pattern with subdued color around the archway / entry to another breakfast nook . Note that the back of the nook also wears a textured wallpaper . Sorry for the out-of-order picture … another frustration from the “upgraded” WordPress Editor . This gives an idea of what the afore-mentioned breakfast area looked like pre-wallpaper. The magazine didn’t mention a brand, but this sure looks like one of Serena & Lily ‘s designs . Of course, when one company makes a popular pattern , many other companies make their own versions . These days, usually you see pattern on the accent wall behind the headboard . So it’s a little unusual to see wallpaper on all four walls of this master bedroom . But it works, because the pattern is simple and the colors are kept to only two , so the overall feel is calming , rather than busy . Fooled me! I thought this headboard accent wall was done in tile – but it’s wallpaper !The same paper on a kitchen cabinet .
I’ve hung this one recently. It’s a Schumacher brand. A small, tight, cozy pattern. Peter Fasano is lovely paper, but a high-end price tag. As I like to say, there is always something similar made by a more standard company that is lower priced and easier to work with. I’m seeing a big uptick in interest in classic murals like this. Gucci products are pricy, but very easy to install and care for.I’m also seeing lots of homeowners interested in jungle or tropical themed patterns. LOTS of patterns out there to choose from. Another classic Chinoiserie mural.
Always cool to see wallpaper featured in a decorating magazine, to nudge homeowners toward using paper in their own homes. This dark jungle pattern is a dramatic transition from entry to living room. No boring all-white walls here! Bold color and a pattern full of visual movement make this powder room a fun and energizing space. As I like to say – you can get away with a lot of drama in a small space like a powder room!
Jungle pattern in dining area.Paisley, green, and purple invoke the Inner Bohemian in this bedroom.Paint-splatter look in kids’ homework station.Subtle palm fronds.You can get away with a lot of drama in a small powder room!Colefax & Fowler historic wallpaper pattern.
Just about every month, this magazine shows at least one home decorated with wallpaper. This month’s selections cover a wide variety of tastes and styles.
What fun wallpaper! This is very similar to grasscloth. But, instead of using natural grasses and reeds, this material is made of strips cut from magazine pages, rolled and folded into long narrow strips, and then sewed onto a paper backing. In some of the columns, you can actually read the words!
There is a similar product made from old newspapers – appropriately named “Yesterday’s News.”
I hung this in a powder room in a new, contemporary home in the Rice Military neighborhood of Houston. The homeowner, Cristin Wells, is an interior designer http://www.wellsdesignedhome.com/ who recently moved here from Chicago (not far from my hometown of St. Louis!), and brings her sophisticated playfulness here to the Bayou City.
This product is similar to grasscloth in that the seams are very visible. So I engineered the room to have seams fall evenly spaced on each wall, which we call balancing, and which gives a pleasing effect.
In addition, the material can be shaded, or paneled, which means there can be a noticeable color difference between strips, even if they come off the same bolt. In the third photo, you see how I have rolled the paper out on the floor, to check for shading / paneling, so the homeowner will be aware of this issue, and so I can plot how and where to use the various strips.
Indeed, before consulting with me, the homeowner initially purchased two bolts of paper; when I measured the space I told her that she needed five more. The additional bolts arrived in a different run. Run and batch and dye lot numbers are important – all bolts from the same run or batch were printed at the same time with the same batch of ink, and will generally be pretty much the same shade. Papers from a different run will be a slightly different shade, and will be very noticeable if placed next to one another on the same wall. This is true even with this recycled magazine page material – see the third photo – although instead of printing with ink, the ladies who manufacture this stuff (usually in China or somewhere in Asia) are grabbing handfuls of magazine pages. As you can see, color variations are still quite possible / probable.
In addition to the 10′ high ceilings, the room had a few features that made the install tricky. One was a deeper than usual vanity, which was difficult and somewhat dangerous to reach over to access the wall. This was also a “floating” vanity, which hung suspended on the wall with a short space underneath it that wanted to be covered with wallpaper. Contorting myself under a 30″ deep vanity into a 5″ high space to stick a couple of strips of paper to a rear wall that no one would ever see questioned my sense of reason – but I could not imagine leaving the wall unpapered, so I “got ‘er done!” Sorry, no photo.
Being a contemporary styled home, the window was recessed with a 1/2″ return,. This meant that I had to bring the paper to the edge of the window, and then wrap a mere 1/2″ around an outside corner. The paper was thick and didn’t want to make this turn, and, when it did, it didn’t want to stay stuck – it kept trying to lift up. Wetting the paper helped soften it so it was more agreeable to making these turns, and in some areas I also used a razor blade to make light horizontal slits in the material, right on the edge of the corner, to reduce tension and allow it to turn more easily. Sorry, no photo.
Speaking of making cuts … This stuff was thick and hard to cut, so it took a lot of pressure and several swipes to make many of the cuts, even with a brand new razor blade. When I trimmed the material horizontally at the ceiling and floor, the strings that held the folded magazine pages to the backing were cut also, and they came loose. That meant that there was nothing holding the folded magazine pages to the paper.
It turns out that each of those horizontal strips of folded magazine pages contained about 6 layers of paper, each folded accordion-style. Threads were sewn on to hold them to the backing. But once the threads were cut, the accordion-folded papers unfurled, spread apart, and pushed away from the backing. So when you looked at the ceiling or floor lines, you saw a puffy ridge running the width of the strip.
What I ended up doing was to go up to the ceiling and then down to the floor edges, gently pry apart the fanned layers, and use wallpaper paste to adhere them to one another. I had to get sufficient paste behind each of the six layers, for the entire 3′ width of each strip, press them back together, hold them until the adhesive tacked up – all without getting any paste on the paper or on the ceiling.
All of the above added a lot of time to this job, and I didn’t leave until 9:30 p.m. But the room looked great when I was finished. From its initial uninspired dull grey paint job to the colorful and quite unexpected recycled magazine pages covering the walls, this powder room has experienced a major transformation.
The wallpaper is by Seabrook, which has been purchased by York. Both are wonderful brands.
The Spring 2018 issue of Flea Market Décor magazine had a feature on Katie Kime, a popular designer based right here in Texas, near downtown Austin. Her successful company has a brick-and-mortar location in Austin, in addition to a huge on-line empire. They sell home goods of all sorts, and, best of all, wallpaper.
The magazine (unfortunately) jumped on their “peel-and-stick” wallpaper. This stuff sounds good, but is, in reality and in my experience, a nightmare, both to get onto the wall, and then later to get off the wall. So stick to their traditional paper option (the hand-pasted version).
I know that the current interior design craze is HGTV’s Joanna Gaines / Fixer Upper look, with vast open rooms, white and grey on every surface, and uncluttered spaces. But there are plenty of people out there – me emphatically included – who like the feel of walls around us, love color, love all things vintage, love to collect, and love to look at our collections. At Christmas, my brother gifted me with a subscription to Flea Market Décor magazine, and, boy, was this a perfect fit! If you like old stuff, retro stuff, imperfect stuff, beat-up stuff, quirky, fun, colorful, funky, junque, thrift stores, and flea markets – go check out this magazine!
Anyway, I am always thrilled to see wallpaper in magazines, and the spring 2018 issue of Flea Market Décor had lots of it.
Note the use on all walls of a living room, and one accent wall of two different bedrooms. Bold patterns and receding patterns. Some paper was used to highlight panels in a door, the butterflies were captured in a large frame over a bathroom vanity, and a bright pink pattern accents a desk area.
You will notice vintage and retro furniture. Many of the rooms use recurring color, pulled from the wallpaper and used again throughout the room. Even though there is a lot of “stuff” in the rooms, the repetitive use of the same color keeps the look cohesive.
Some of the rooms are funky, and some are sophisticated and even elegant (the peacock feathers). All of them feel warm and inviting, and they definitely express the homeowner’s personality and individuality.
I always love to see wallpaper featured in national magazines, so I’m thrilled that Southern Living has a spread honoring this beautiful wall treatment.
In the first photo, the fluffy dandelion seed heads seem a little busy to me, but they sure impart a fun and uplifting feeling to the walls of this breakfast room.
The second photo shows a muted tone-on-tone pattern that forms a soothing backdrop to a bedroom.
The last picture is back to fun – it’s faux chicken wire. Just what Joanna Gaines might order to top off her popular “modern farmhouse” look.
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