Hall bathroom before . The walls had this super-heavy ” Tuscan ” texture that I spend a day and a half smoothing out . Finished Looks so good with the orange painted cabinetry . Also note the really fun tile on the shower to the left. Colorful and lively ! I had ’60’s & ’70’s music on all day while installing , to compliment the mood .
And poppies – well, ya know … that whole psychedelic thing from back then …
Swedish manufacturer . Lina II , Design midbec , tapeter
This is a pretty nice non-woven material, water and stain-resistant , fairly easy to install , can paste the wall or paste the paper , seams are near invisible . It will be easy to strip off the wall when you redecorate . Affordable price .
Sold by the on-line company wallpaperfromthe70s.com , based out of Germany . Really nice folks. Here’s a picture of the brand new shower , to show the whole room is colorful and retro vibe .
Breakfast area beforeBreakfast area after … with my work table set-up still in the middle of the room.Kitchen sink / window area before.FinishedThis fruit-and-floral motif is a very retro look, which was popular in the 1950’s – early 1970’s . The background looks like linoleum tiles – very period-appropriate.Close-up.Exclusive Wallcoverings saw the current interest in retro / vintage looks, and designed this very appropriate pattern. This was a thin and very flexible non-woven material , and was a delight to work with. As are all non-wovens, this is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. To install , you can paste the paper or paste the wall . This home is in the Lexington Woods area of Spring , ( north Houston ).
Here I’m hanging wallpaper from right to left, working around this corner. I’ve wrapped the paper 1/8″ around the corner, and then cut a new piece that will overlap that 1/8″ and continue to move to the left. (Search here to learn more about turning inside corners.) This is a 100 year old house, and this corner is way off-plumb – on both the right side and the left side. The chair rail, however, is perfectly level. Here, the pattern matches nicely at the bottom of the wall. But as it moves up, the crooked corner takes over, and the pattern becomes mis-aligned. By hanging the paper crooked, I can match the wallpaper pattern perfectly in the corner. But that will skew the left edge of this new strip off-plumb by slanting it to the right. That means that every subsequent strip will track off-plumb … and the motif at the top of the chair rail will start to climb uphill. Since the chair rail is so prominently visible, I think it’s more important for the pattern motif to be straight along the chair rail, than to be perfectly matched in the corner. But I didn’t like the way the pattern was getting un-matched at the upper part of the wall. I thought I could make it look better. This design gave me something to fiddle with. One option was to cut the paper vertically between the two rows of “swoops.” Then I could match the pattern in the corner, and pull the excess paper to the left, overlapping one strip on top of the other about 1/4″ at the top and tapering down to nothing at the chair rail. It’s a thin paper in a room with not-great lighting, so this overlapped lip would not be very noticeable. Still, I thought I could make it look better. I could make the overlap invisible by trimming the paper along the design. Here I’ve removed that corner piece. On the left is the strip I’ve cut off. Here I’m putting the strip into place, and making sure that the pattern matches nicely in the corner. This pushes the upper part of this cut strip further to the left, so it overlaps the other strip of paper just a little Now, instead of a visible straight overlap the full height of the strip, the overlap comes along the rounded edges of the design. That black line disguises the overlap beautifully!Here it is nicely matched in the corner, with invisible overlap along the curved black line. The excess still needs to be trimmed off at the ceiling and chair rail. Mission accomplished! The design matches nicely in the corner, the paper moving to the left is hung perfectly plumb, and the motifs are all at their proper heights along the chair rail and ceiling. This fun retro mid-century modern pattern is by Designer Wallpapers.
No boring beige or all-white walls in this home of a growing and active family in the Cypress / Jersey Village area of Houston. Throughout the home, the mom has added touches of blue, green, yellow, and pink, along with a heavy dose of mid-century modern furnishings and accessories. Time to pull the powder room into the mix! Originally, this room was wallpapered in a typical ’80’s pattern, complete with a border running below the ceiling. Did I say ’80’s ?! That wallpaper had been removed, and the walls were painted a dark tan. The room was very boring and boxy and uninspiring.But … add a little wallpaper and – nothing boring here! And the look definitely invokes the ’50’s, ’60’s, and ’70’s – can you say Flower Power ? Spoonflower sells several types of wallpaper. Definitely do NOT get their peel & stick (see my page to the right), and I’m not fond of their vinyl material. I do like their pre-pasted smooth , which is what my client chose. Spoonflower doesn’t come in standard dimension rolls. It comes in 24″ wide ” rolls ” of 1′, 3′, 9′, or 12′ lengths. So measuring and calculating is a little more complicated than for traditional wallpapers. (The mermaid kitchen towel on the right is also by Spoonflower – and they have wallpaper to match!)Strips of this material are designed to be overlapped at the seams. This is good, because it prevents gapping at the seams as the paste dries, and it also eliminates stress on the wall that could cause underlying surfaces to delaminate and come apart. Do a Search here to learn more. The downside is that this overlapped area does leave a ridge running the length of the seam. Most people don’t mind the look, especially with a busy pattern like this one. Pattern # 4330883 is called Party Posies. This material is custom-printed. The homeowner ordered 11 rolls, and here you can see how the manufacturer has numbered each of the rolls in sequence (5th roll of 11 total).
Here is a home where people are not scared of color, nor of pattern …. What a fun switch from drab to dramatic – with a little groovy tossed in!
The wallpaper is by Sanderson, a British company. Unlike most modern British papers which are of non-woven material, this was printed on a pulp substrate, and the surface felt like vinyl. Once wet with paste, it was fairly flimsy and prone to tear while being trimmed with a razor blade. Once dry, it will be a bit more durable.
This was a small, cramped powder room. It was super appreciated that the homeowners had removed the sink before I started work, so it was much easier to hang paper on that wall.
The home is in the Montrose area of inner loop Houston.
More cork wallcovering today, on an accent wall in the first floor guest bedroom of the same home in Montrose (Houston) where I worked yesterday. The homeowners were going for a “retro disco” look. In the adjoining bathroom, there’s a disco ball chandelier (trust me – you can find anything on the internet!), and 1920’s speakeasy-era artwork and statuary in the bedroom.
This glamourous, smolderingly moody metallic wallpaper with its sparkles of gold round out the look with a very loud bang!
As you might expect, this wallpaper is in the line by the Queen of Glam – Candice Olson, and is made by York. The interior designer who pulled this room together is Elizabeth Maciel.
It 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.
I know that the current interior design craze is HGTV’s Joanna Gaines / Fixer Upper look, with vast open rooms, white and grey on every surface, and uncluttered spaces. But there are plenty of people out there – me emphatically included – who like the feel of walls around us, love color, love all things vintage, love to collect, and love to look at our collections. At Christmas, my brother gifted me with a subscription to Flea Market Décor magazine, and, boy, was this a perfect fit! If you like old stuff, retro stuff, imperfect stuff, beat-up stuff, quirky, fun, colorful, funky, junque, thrift stores, and flea markets – go check out this magazine!
Anyway, I am always thrilled to see wallpaper in magazines, and the spring 2018 issue of Flea Market Décor had lots of it.
Note the use on all walls of a living room, and one accent wall of two different bedrooms. Bold patterns and receding patterns. Some paper was used to highlight panels in a door, the butterflies were captured in a large frame over a bathroom vanity, and a bright pink pattern accents a desk area.
You will notice vintage and retro furniture. Many of the rooms use recurring color, pulled from the wallpaper and used again throughout the room. Even though there is a lot of “stuff” in the rooms, the repetitive use of the same color keeps the look cohesive.
Some of the rooms are funky, and some are sophisticated and even elegant (the peacock feathers). All of them feel warm and inviting, and they definitely express the homeowner’s personality and individuality.
This retro-looking pattern is perfect for a bathroom in a 1963 ranch-style home in Meyerland (Houston). The original paper was a soiled pink with multi-colored mini-dots all over it. This brighter and more playful selection was a vast improvement.
This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, #839-T-1886, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.
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