What a Sexy, Dramatic Wallpaper!

This newish home in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston was plain-Jane and generic as they come, with every surface coated in tan. The cheery mother of three kids under age five wanted the home to reflect the youth and energy of the household. I am slowly transforming several spaces in this home. Keep posted!

This is the master bedroom. I say, there are not many people who have the guts to go this daring! The wallpaper pattern scale is large, the color is bold, and the design is avant-garde… It looks fantastic!

The design looks like chunks of agate that have been sliced into slivers. The color is that of malachite. It takes two strips of width for the whole pattern to play out – and that’s good, because this wall expanse is about 17′ wide.

This wallpaper pattern is by York Wall, 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.

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Cute Paris Theme for Little Girls’ Shared Bathroom

Most everything in this new home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston is sleek and white. The homeowner wanted to add just a little pizazz to the hall bathroom shared by her two young daughters.

This Paris-themed design, with its pencil-thin lines and three-color palette is just perfect! I love the way the line drawing effect reiterates the lines in the shower’s subway tile. Charcoal grey, white, and just a touch of red are enough to brighten the room, without overwhelming the serene white color scheme. And it’s a fun design to look at. I mean, who wouldn’t love Paris – especially a Paris with a Ferris wheel?

The wallpaper is by York Wall, in their Sure Strip line, and is a pre-pasted product on a thin non-woven backing. It is designed to strip off the wall easily with no damage when it’s time to redecorate. In the meantime, it is thin and hugs the wall tightly, and the seams are practicably invisible. This brand is very reasonably-priced.

The interior designer for this project is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design. Stacie specializes in helping choose floor plans, finishes (flooring, countertops, paint colors), fixtures (faucets, lights, knobs), appliances, in new home construction and in remodel projects. Her look is fresh and clean, but very livable for modern families. She is a delight to work with.

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.

Completing the Look

Obviously, wallpaper went on all the walls of the entry of this new home in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston. But this last wall didn’t lend itself to wallpaper because of the rounded edge that ended on the stairway… I knew that this busy family with two young athletic sons would probably rub against the cut edge and cause it to release from the wall. But that wall faced into the room, and really needed to have the pattern and color on it.

So I took scraps of the wallpaper and cut flower and leaf appliqués that I pasted to the wall over the door. The large red flower on the right, and the yellow flower on the top left are at the same position as they are in the design on the rest of the walls.

Just this small number of figures helps pull the pattern and color onto this final wall, and makes the room look complete.

World Map for a Worldly Little Boy

The five-year-old boy who has this bedroom in a newish house in the Heights neighborhood of Houston is “map crazy” – so says his mom. Interior designer Stacie Cokinos found this colorful map full of primary colors that kids relate to, and that will satisfy his wanderlust, too.

The mural came 12′ wide by a little more than 8′ tall, and came in four panels – two across the top, and two across the bottom. (see third photo) Since the wall was shorter than the map, we decided it was better to lose the excess paper from the bottom, which was mostly water; that saved the more interesting land and country portions for the more visible top section.

Those four panels turned out to be 6′ wide. But my wingspan is more like 3′. Yikes! How to handle these awkward panels? No problem – I ran home and grabbed my other ladder. By placing the two of them next to each other (see fourth photo), I was able to walk from one to the other, and could easily manipulate the 6′ wide material. It also helped that this product was a paste-the-wall installation.

A Great Pattern Choice for All Walls In a Bedroom

I didn’t hang this wallpaper, but I couldn’t resist taking a picture when I saw it in a guest bedroom of one of my clients here in Houston.

If you want a sweet looking room, this is a perfect choice.

The two-hue color scheme is relaxing, and the overall viney pattern is easy to look at and live with. It has an “English country garden” feel to it.

It’s the perfect pattern to use on all four walls of a bedroom.

Note: Once the homeowners get fully moved into their new home, they will outfit the room with more appropriate bedding, and add a little furniture and artwork to this room.

Hick’s Hexagon in a Houston Heights Powder Room

This large powder room (it has a shower!) in a new home in the Houston Heights originally had all-white walls (like the rest of the house). Interior designer Stacie Cokinos suggested wallpaper to warm the room and add personality. The homeowner had never used wallpaper before and was skeptical, but she tentatively agreed.

What a wonderful choice this turned out to be! The wallpaper defines the space and transforms it from timid to bold. But, because the color palette is limited, the feeling is not chaotic. The color coordinates beautifully with the dark brass wall sconces. Previously, the white woodwork blended in with the white walls. But now the dark color of the wallpaper makes the beautiful door moldings stand out.

This is a popular pattern, and I’ve hung it, or variations of it, a number of times. The design is by David Hicks and is made by Cole & Son, a British company. It’s a non-woven material, and is meant to be applied by the paste-the-wall method, but I had better results with pasting the paper.

The interior designer is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design. She works primarily on new builds, and mostly in the Heights neighborhoods. Her look is spacious, clean, and crisp, with a little fun tossed into the mix.

Subtle Shimmer in a Home Office

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It’s easier to find beautiful shimmery Chinoiserie murals on HOUZZ – than it is to swallow the price tag … Some of those you see pictured are very high-end, meaning, $1000-$10,000 per panel.

I suggested this homeowner go visit Dorota (read below) and she was able to find a very similar design and color that she loves, for a very reasonable price. It has just enough of the Asian look, and the flowers look like they are hand painted on. It compliments her mirrored desk and side tables, and it offers a bit of upscale shimmer, but does not overpower the room.

The soft colors blend nicely with the rest of the house. The homeowner will probably pick up some of the soft peach color from the flowers as an accent color in other areas of the room. I’m hoping she will paint the other three walls this color.

I hung this on one accent wall of a second floor home office, in a new home in the Houston Heights. It’s by Wallquest, in their Jaima Brown Home line. This wallpaper was bought at below retail price from 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.

“Smoke” On A Floating Wall

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This wall in the dining room of a very contemporary new home in the Spring Branch area of Houston “floats” in the middle of the room. This breath of smoke floating across the wall adds a distinctly ethereal feel.

The interior designer on this job is Neal LeBouef, of L Design Group, who was expertly assisted by Anthony Stransky. I love working for these guys. And homeowners love their creations, which are crisp, sleek, modern, a bit edgy, yet still warm and comfortable.

The smoke mural was custom made to fit the wall, and came from Murals Your Way https://www.muralsyourway.com/ , a member of the Wallcovering Installers Association (WIA). Their murals can be printed on various materials, and I chose the vinyl on an Osnaburg backing.

Each of the three panels was about 42″ wide, and they were meant to be overlapped and then double-cut (spliced) at the seams. Great care was taken to not get paste on either the surface of the mural or on the ceiling, and to not score the wall while splicing.

I have a specially made 2 1/2″ wide plastic tape that keeps paste off surfaces, and another special 2″ wide polystyrene plastic strip that protects the wall from cuts from the razor blade, and a specially made non-slip straightedge used as a guide while trimming. All of these were invented and made by fellow members of the WIA (Steve Boggess and Eunice Bokstrom). Probably boring for the average blog-reader, but exciting stuff for us paperhangers. These things really helped make this job turn out perfect.