Broken Lines, Angles, and Triangles

These “broken lines” type designs are quite popular right now, and this one is particularly suited to this Mid-Century Modern home, which is being renovated to highlight all its retro glory.

This paper is by York, in their SureStrip line, and is a very affordable alternative to high-profile and high-end patterns like “Channels” by Kelly Wearstler. It’s a thin non-woven material, comes pre-pasted, is a dream to work with, and hugs the wall tightly. By contrast, often times, high-end papers are bugger-bears to work with and get to look good on the wall.

I hung this in a rear bathroom in a home in Piney Point, in the area of Houston referred to as “the Villages.”

David Hicks’s “Hexagon” in a Master Bathroom – Note the Freestanding Bathtub

David Hicks’s “Hexagon” pattern by Cole & Son is a well-loved design. I’ve hung it a number of times. Here it is in a large master bathroom in a very Mid-Century Modern home in the Piney Point (Villages) neighborhood of Houston.

Just this bathtub alcove, along with two small mirror walls over the his-and-hers vanities, received wallpaper.

Just the tub alcove by itself took me over six hours to hang (six single rolls). The complicating issues were unplumb walls, unlevel ceiling and soffit, a geometric pattern that the eye wants to see marching evenly across the walls, thick stiff paper that is hard to manipulate, ink that wants to crack and flake off the paper, complicated room lay-out, and … squeezing behind that tub to put wallpaper on the walls around it!

There are some spots where the pattern match is off a bit, and some areas where the crookedness of the walls is very evident (meaning that the pattern goes off-kilter). But overall, the room turned out great.

The design is called “Hexagon,” and is by David Hicks, designer for Cole & Son, a British company who has been manufacturing wallpaper for way more than a hundred years.

It’s a non-woven material that can be hung by the paste-the-wall method, but I chose to paste the paper, which made it more pliable, and which made it easier to get paste where it needed to be when going around the window areas and behind the tub.

A Totally CUUUUTE Wallpaper for a Home Bar

The husband wasn’t sure he wanted this paper in their home bar area. The wife and I decided that it was sooo cute and charming, it was going up, hubby’s approval or not! 🙂 (Don’t worry – he loves it!)

This playful pattern is by Marimekko, and is a non-woven material. I hung it by pasting the wall (instead of the paper), which was ideal for this one accent wall with no turns or intricate cuts.

An interesting feature is that the company engineered this so that the glasses and goblets did not cross any seams. Also, they were aligned so that whole figures could be placed at the top of the wall, with none being cut off as the paper was trimmed at the ceiling.

This allowed me to put the motifs I wanted smack at the top of the wall on every strip – even if the ceiling line was not level, or if the side walls were not plumb.

This makes for a much more pleasing view of the wallpaper.

The home is a mid-century modern gem in the Piney Point neighborhood of Houston.