Please see yesterday’s post for the “before” photo. Here’s the master bedroom suite all finished. There’s a dramatic feature / accent wall behind the headboard with Rifle Paper ‘s beloved Peacock pattern . On the remaining three walls is Rifle Paper ‘s Garden Party Trellis . RiRight side of the room. The homeowner is a single gal , and she wanted her master bedroom to be a relaxing retreat , but with a distinct feminine edge . Well – here you’ve got it!! Left side of the room. Look here, and at the photo above, and you’ll see how nice this uniformity looks. It was tricky! See subsequent blog post for info on how I did this. Window wall – which took me five hours, BTW! She’s going to add window treatments that will be feminine – but the exact choice remains to be unveiled.I pulled some tricks to get the flowers centered down the middle of the window columns. See a following post to see how I did this. Pattern nicely centered on closet wall.
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Another nicely centered section of wall. Close-up. This pattern is just fun. I like to say that it looks like the flowers are smiling . Closer-up. The homeowner loved the ” column ” look of the vertical pattern . The pattern is called Garden Party Trellis , and is a companion to the very popular original Garden Party made by this company Rifle Paper . Which is made by York. Many Rifle Papers are printed on the non-woven / paste the wall material, which has many advantages – stain-resistant, dimensionally-stable , strong, strips off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate later. But this turned out to be a traditional paper type wallpaper – still good stuff, but a different material that calls for different installation techniques and time frame. I will note that the website stated that this was a nonwoven substrate . I encountered this conflicting information several times lately, so, despite what the on-line specs say, be prepared for any type of install scenario. This is a new home in the Rice Military area of Houston.
The living areas in this new home in the Oak Forest area of Houston are cloaked in grey , black , brown , tan , wood tones , textures – subdued , but a little warmer than the current trend toward all white and minimalist . The homeowner wanted to add a little pow factor in the hall bath . The stripes of dark paint on the wall are to keep the white primer from peeking out at the seams if the paper shrinks a bit as it dries . Do a Search here to learn more. The large scale of this foliage and floral pattern adds the pow , while the 2- color scheme keeps things in character with the rest of the home . I centered the large flower on the vanity faucet and the light fixture , and the mirror will sit nicely in between the flower motifs . Detail looks like an artist’s painting . Made by Wallquest . It’s a very nice paper -type wallpaper . It’s thin and breathable and should hold up to humid conditions in a bathroom , although not extremely stain resistant . I like this brand and material a lot.
This young family wanted some WOW! Factor for their new home’s plain-Jane powder room. It’s a 2-room set up, with the sink in one area and the toity around the corner in a more private area.Looking through one room into the next – yes, really a WOW! Factor!Looks fantastic with the burnished gold faucets, light sconces, and hand towel ring.Opposite wall. I centered the pattern on the wall opposite the mirror, so that the design would work around the room evenly and the pattern would fall equally on these two walls. In other words, the pattern hits the tile wall on the left at exactly the same point as it does on the tile wall to the right. The sconces also land on the same element in the wallpaper. This gives a very symmetrical look as you face the mirror. One of those things no one can put his finger on, but it makes the whole room feel balanced and in sync. Back wall connecting to right wall with door that leads to the entry hall.The commode room is under the stairway, so has a strongly sloped ceiling – and tight working quarters. You can also see that the wall is bowed in the corner, resulting in a good pattern match at top and bottom, but some mis-alignment in the center. Pretty typical. No walls are perfectly plumb, no ceiling is perfectly level, and corners are just about always a bit wonky. Geometric designs like this are particularly difficult to make look perfect. On close-up, you can see a slight raised ink texture. This surface printed wallpaper was not a crisp look – nothing wrong with that … it’s part of the hand-crafted look. The non-woven material is thick and stiff, and the seams were a bit more noticeable than on many other non-wovens. I also noted that where the gold ink hit the edges of the paper, there were ever-so-slight curls and overlaps. My guess is the gold ink reacted to the wet paste and expanded differently from the black and the background color. Never mind. From two feet away, you can’t notice it at all. The David Hicks Collection by GP & J Baker contains several variations of this type of bold geometric pattern. Some of the vendors are calling this a “new” release … but I first hung one of these designs maybe 10 years ago. Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten any better with the quality. Surprising, because GP&J Baker’s papers are usually very nice – I did one just a few months ago and loved it. Conversely, this one is quite stiff, and trying to work it into tight spots such as corners or behind a toilet or around a vanity or light fixture can result in creases. And the ink flakes off very easily. Here, just pressing the wallpaper against the baseboard so it could be trimmed caused the ink to chip off, and you can see little bits of it collected on top of the baseboard on the left. Luckily, this was at the floor and not very noticeable. I used some black chalk to cover the white areas. But at eye-level, this would have necessitated removing the whole strip and replacing with a new one.
Before. Hurricane Ida (October 2021) took their New Orleans home and everything in it, so the homeowner relocated to a north Houston suburb to be closer to family and college friends. The home is brand new, and has grey-tan walls. While the homeowner “grows” into the house, acquires furnishings, and figures out her decorating approach, she wanted at least one room prettied up. She fell in love with this wallpaper pattern, and decided the powder room was the best place to showcase it. Pattern centered on the sink / faucet and light fixture. It will look symmetrical and super nice when the mirror is hung.William Morris innovated designs like this back in the 1860’s, and started the Art Nouveau and Arts & Craft movements, which carried on into the early 1900’s. I’ve hung a lot of patterns by him, and similar, in recent years, indicating an increased interest in this gorgeous, fluid, nature -centric style.The paper has a velvety feel, and the seams were invisible. It’s non-woven material, which is very strong and designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate. It’s fairly water-resistant and somewhat more stain-resistant than more traditional wallpaper substrates. Apelviken by Midbec is a Scandinavian manufacturer. Yeah…. the instructions on the flip side were a lot of fun to read through! Interestingly, the labels listed the sequence in which the bolts were printed. Note that not all the bolts were in proper sequence. With a machine-printed product, sequence isn’t all that important because the color will print out very evenly.
The homeowner loved the new look, and said that having this one room decorated with some color and personality helped a lot to make the new house feel like a home. After the trauma she went through in recent months, it was an honor to help her new home become warm and welcoming.
Kinda reminds me of a Maharishi. It was tough going around those wall-mounted fixtures.I centered the pattern on the sink wall, so it would look uniform and balanced around the mirror. Moving from left to right around three walls, the pattern almost perfectly centered itself on this rear wall. Signature wallpaper by Brewers.
I love it when homeowners are daring with pattern and color. This powder room has certainly jumped to a grander incarnation!
The material is “non-woven,” a synthetic material. It can be hung by pasting the wall, but, since it was rather thick and stiff, I pasted the back of the wallpaper, to ensure more pliability.
The new home is in the Midtown / Third Ward area of Houston.
This home office in a new, contemporary home in the Sunset Terrace / West University neighborhood of Houston has walls that were nearly 11′ high. In addition, there were bookcases and desks that I had to lean over in order to reach much of the wallspace.
My solution was to bring my 6′ ladder in addition to my usual 5′ ladder. By placing the shorter ladder on top of the desk counter, I was able get close enough and high enough to do the wall behind the desk.
I’m not quite 100lbs, so my weight and its distribution on the counter was not a worry.
To reach the area over the bookcases to the left, I had to do a combination of balancing on the 5′ ladder, and stepping onto the very top of the 6′ ladder, then leaning precariously, and placing a foot onto the shelves – without putting too much weight, because they were not securely attached.
You can be sure that I had to keep mindful of my center of gravity, how close the ladder was to the edge of that counter, how far I had to reach, how much backward torque that placed on the ladder, how stable the ladder was on its surface, and a whole lot more – all while also concentrating on getting the paper straight, trimmed, and smooth on the wall.
As I like to say, you can get away with a lot of drama in a powder room. Here is proof!
The new home is in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston. The wallpaper is by Marimekko. It is a non-woven material, and can be hung by the paste-the-wall method or, the method I prefer, paste-the-paper.
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.
This family bought a new home in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston, and then lived for a year with dull, lifeless walls in the dining room – all the while craving color and personality. Finally, the husband had a chance to tackle the textured walls (see previous post), and shortly thereafter, I came along.
This print is fun but not cutesy or trendy. And – while monochromatic, it adds a whole lot of color to the once-bland room.
Printed on a non-woven substrate, this product could be hung using the paste-the-wall method, or the paste-the-material method, which is what I did, for many reasons. It went up very nicely.
This wallpaper pattern is by A-Street Prints, 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 owner of this new home in the booming Towne Lake neighborhood of Cypress (NW Houston) wanted to add some “funky French country” flair to the home. For the powder room near the kitchen, she found this swirly take on a classic damask pattern. It has a pearlized finish that adds just a bit of shimmer.
This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, 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.
Say it in French and it sounds beautifully exotic. In reality, they’re moths.
This rhythmic pattern by Timorous Beasties went in a powder room in a new home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. Note the brick and wooden accents in the room.
Whereas most wallpaper patterns repeat either every strip or every other strip (half-drop), Papillion de Nuit has a quarter-drop pattern match, which means that the pattern repeats itself every fourth strip. It’s extremely difficult to figure out and to keep properly placed on the wall, especially when every motif is identical.
In addition, the powder room had some challenging features of its own. The whole job took me about 14 hours! It looks great, though.
It’s made of fiberglass-based non-woven material. This can be installed via the paste-the-wall method, or by pasting the paper (which is what I generally do). Some features of this material is that it is designed to be stripped off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate, and that it is dimensionally-stable and won’t expand or stretch when wetted by the paste.
The interior designer for this job is Stacie Cokinos of Cokinos Design.
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