Large Silvery Metallic Damask in a Down-Sized Home’s Powder Room

Apologies for the bad pictures of a beautiful paper!

This couple lost their home in Kingwood (northeast Houston) to the flooding from Hurricane Harvey. They relocated to a new-but-smaller spec house in Somerset Green near central Houston, and are using interior designer Anthony Stransky of L Design Group to decorate their new home, while giving their traditional taste a tad more modern feel.

Damask wallpaper patterns are quite traditional, but the large scale and metallic sheen of this particular selection bring it into the modern age. And the over-sized pattern fills the walls nicely, in this sizeable powder room with 10′ high ceilings.

The pattern is in the Anna French collection by Thibaut Designs. It is printed on a thickish non-woven material. I usually prefer thin papers, but this was quite nice to work with. It didn’t crease like many N-W papers do, the seams were practically invisible, and, once pasted and softened, it was flexible and stretchable enough to accommodate some pretty un-straight and un-plumb walls.

This non-woven paper could have been hung using the paste-the-wall method. But I prefer the pliability that comes when the material itself is pasted. Plus, pasting the material definitely makes it easier when working around pedestal sinks and behind toilets.

The builder coated the walls of this large powder room with a bland dark tan paint. These homeowners had never used wallpaper before, but, once they went for the interior design team’s suggestion, there was no learning curve – They LOVE the newly papered powder room!

Anthony Stransky and founder Neal Leboeuf of L Design Group serve the entire Houston metropolitan area. They assist homeowners with interior design, new home buyers with all choices such as flooring, faucets, window coverings, fixtures, etc., and – when they get breathing room – they do events planning. Super guys, energetic and fun, with a look that’s modern and fun, with an urban edge. See them in a summer 2018 issue of Houston House & Home magazine – on the cover and in a story inside.

Adorable Pattern; Difficult Install

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Many people love this pattern, but few have the chutzpah to put it on their walls. The owner of a new home in Spring Branch (Houston) took the leap and had me put it in her powder room – and it looks fantastic.

So the finished room looks great – getting the paper up on the walls was another story.

The problem was the extremely stiff non-woven material the wallpaper is printed on. The manufacturer, Cole & Son, uses a softer, more flexible non-woven material for others of their patterns, such as “Woods,” and it’s pretty nice to work with. This stuff I hung today is the opposite.

If you are only hanging wallpaper on an accent wall, this stuff would have been OK. But in real life, you will be working around angled ceilings, light fixtures, door and window moldings, toilets, water supply lines, vanities, and the most trying of all – pedestal sinks. Trying to maneuver and manipulate the stiff and unyielding wallpaper into position without getting any creases or overlaps or gaps or cuts or abraded areas was a huge challenge.

The installation took twice as long as it should have, and there are some aspects I am not happy with. (Don’t worry – the homeowners love it.) I would be happy if I never saw it again.

Oh, did I mention that I am hanging the same paper next week? Well, at least I have been warmed up and know what I’m in for.

This wallpaper pattern is by Cole & Son, a British company, and is called Acquario.

Another Boring Powder Room Springs to Life

This large powder room in the home of a young family in West University Place (Houston) had been painted dark green. Before that, it was papered in a dark red print wallpaper. While I do like dark powder rooms, without any pattern on the walls, the painted room lacked personality and was claustrophobic.

With help from interior designer Sylvia Walker at Studio Bella, the homeowner chose this white-on-silver medallion pattern. It sure changed the room … The lighter color and simple pattern visually expanded the room, while adding personality and an inviting feel.

In the sink photo, I want to point out that the wallpaper pattern is perfectly centered, although the angle of the shot makes it look off a hair. The sink was recessed in an area flanked by obtuse angles, and it was extremely difficult to paper. The obtuse angle corners were neither plumb nor perpendicular, making it impossible to get an accurate measurement, and the “wiggling walls” meant that paper wrapping around the corners would twist off-plumb and also would likely have wrinkles and an uneven edge, meaning that the next strip of wallpaper would meet in some areas but gap in others.

And, to cap it off, pedestal sinks are bugger bears anyway, trying to keep the paper from tearing, while you work it around curved surfaces, and then maneuvering it under the sink and cut around the water lines and drain pipe. To complicate things more, this sink didn’t fit into the unusual corner space, so had been shored up with boards on either side.

I was very pleased, though, as I managed to get the seams to meet nicely – no gaps or overlaps, and, given enough time (like, about an hour), the paper worked nicely around and under the sink. I even put wallpaper on the boards next to the sink, which helped them fade into the background.

This wallpaper is by Thibaut, and was exceptionally nice to work with. It was malleable when I needed it to be, yet held it’s shape and didn’t shrink. Paste wiped off the surface nicely, and the metallic silver color is attractive, and the slightly raised white ink lends just a tad of texture.