Home Office Goes From Studious to Beachy

I admit, I really like the dark chocolate paint again the beautiful moldings in this home office.

But the homeowner is embarking on a new chapter in life, and wanted to freshen things up. She likes the beach and ocean, so this soft aqua look was just the ticket. I love the way it looks with the deep brown doors.

Railroaded (run sideways) over the cabinets. The wall to the right has not been papered yet.

Textured embossed commercial grade vinyl that mimics woven cloth. This stuff will wear like iron.

Manufacturer is Thibaut, in their Texture Resources collection.

This textured vinyl wallpaper is a beautiful and beachy update to this home office. But – man – it sure beat my butt! This should have been a one-long-day job, but it took me two days.

The material is very thick and hard to manipulate into place. And it is extremely difficult to cut through – even with a brand new razor blade. Add to that the many (10 – count ’em -10!) points of decorative door and window molding to cut around. And several other tricky spaces.

The end result, though, is beautiful and calming, and the homeowner loves it.

The home is in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. The interior designer is Stacie Cokinos of Cokinos Design, who does mainly new-builds and whole-house remodels in the greater Heights area.

Ahoy Matey! Fun Mural in Home Office

You’d think this mural went on the wall of a child’s room. But, no – it’s a focal wall in a home office. All the more fun because, due to COVID, the homeowners are working from home and spending a lot of time in here.

The product is by Murals Wallpaper. In the second photo, you see their instruction sheet. In the third photo, I have cut apart and rolled out all the panels on the floor, to check the pattern match to be sure of their proper placement, and to get accurate measurements.

It’s important that murals are ordered 4″ wider and taller than the wall’s exact dimensions, to accommodate for wonky walls and ceilings, and for trimming at the ceiling and baseboard and at the sides.

The next photo shows I have rolled the strips backwards and lined them up in the order they will be hung. This is a non-woven material, and I am installing via the paste-the-wall method. Rolling the strips backward ensures that the surface of the panel will not hit against the pasted wall.

This went up very nicely, and Murals Wallpaper is a good company to purchase murals. The murals can be custom-sized to your wall. (Remember to add those 4″!)

The other three walls are painted a complimentary medium-hued blue. This wall lightens the room – and adds some whimsey, too!

The home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston.

nautical, ship, ocean, sea, monster, pirate, serpent,

Houston Heights Powder Room With Glittery Glass Bead Wallpaper

I took a “before” shot, but forgot to take an “after.” 😦

But here is a close-up pic of the fresh and clean geometric design. What takes this out of the ordinary is that the pattern is formed of teeeny round glass beads adhered to the surface.

It gives a 3-dimensional effect, and also shimmers because it bounces light around.

This product sounds cool to look at, but it was actually quite difficult to work with. In fact, I am considering declining glass bead jobs in the future.

The material is very thick, and thus hard to press into corners or ceiling lines, which means that after trimming, there may be a slight gap at the ceiling or baseboard.

In the instances where you need to overlap (turning inside corners), because the material is so thick, there will be gaps. Plus the worry that the paper does not have a solid surface to stick to (fat glass beads, thin backing material).

Worst is that the beads are virtually impossible to cut through. You can have a brand new, ultra-sharp razor blade, or the most impressive industrial-grade scissors, but still get unsatisfactory cuts. So anywhere you need to trim, you can expect to spend a lot of time sawing, and then still end up with jagged cuts or sections where the beads have fallen off.

Further, the beads fall off like crazy! So many had accumulated on the floor that I nearly slipped more than once. They get behind the paper and cause bumps. They get in the paste and contaminate other strips, and even jobs for future clients. Environmentalists scowl on them because they get washed down the drain and work their way into the ocean.

Glass bead wallpaper is not as popular as it was a few years ago. I’m glad.

This particular product is by Osborne & Little, a long-established British company, was on a non-woven (paste the wall) substrate, and came packed with extreme care to prevent damage from shipping.

Update for a Teen Aged Boy’s Bedroom

Stripes are safe, but they’re not very interesting. And the original border showed little children at play. Now that this young man is old enough to choose his own décor, he wants something that reflected his interests – boating and the ocean.

You don’t see many borders these days, but the family liked the look. Also, because the installer who hung the original border used a rubbery paste that would not come off the wall, sealing it and hanging the new border over it is much easier than retexturing the walls. The new border is wider than the original, which works nicely to cover the old residue.

This nautical look wallpaper and border are by York, in their Sure Strip line. The job site is in Baytown, a suburb of Houston.