Take A Walk In Central Park. Dinner Party Guests Chime In

Before. Most of this home is in the white / beige / neutral decorating scheme. The homeowner wanted something with pizzazz to snazz up the powder room. Textured walls have been smoothed, primed, and are ready for wallpaper.

Definite WOW! factor!

Toilet corner before.

Toilet corner done.

Another view

Close up.

Closer up. The textured background you see is the non-woven material this is printed on. It has a 20% polyester content, and is thus somewhat similar to fiberglass. Very hard to tear, resistant to stains , and designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece , with no damage to the wall , when you redecorate .
It can be hung by pasting the wall , or by pasting the paper . I generally prefer to paste the paper .

Rolling it out on the floor , to see the overall pattern , and to decide what element I want to place at the center of the focal wall as well as at the top of the wall . This pattern is so wild and crazy and over-all, that it ultimately doesn’t matter about pattern placement . That’s pretty rare .
The pattern is called Central Park and is made by Thibaut . The home is in the Galleria / Tanglewood area of Houston .
What’s very cool is that the homeowner had ordered large samples of three colorways , but couldn’t decide which she wanted to go with. So she taped them to the wall, threw a dinner party , and asked her guests to vote for their favorite. This bright and colorful one won, hands down!
Now she’ll have to invite them all back again, to see the finished room!
I think the color and the design go super nicely with the weathered-white , deeply carved front of the vanity .
installer installation

Testing Paint Colors

Paint color test patches on my clients’ entry wall .

Here’s what it looked like before. Guess which color swatch won?

Neither! Wallpaper won!

Very much the better option, as wallpaper offers pattern , dimension , warmth , and personality .

Homeowner Lets Me Know Which Walls To Paper

I love it when my clients make things clear.
It’s been a couple of month since our initial consultation, and I don’t always remember the spaces 100%.
So these notes and wallpaper samples are really helpful.
Especially so if the client won’t be home when I arrive.

Also indicating in which direction the flowers should flow.
This is in the Artemis line by House of Hackney .
installer houston

Cheery Verdant Choice Saves Home Office

This accent wall in a home office in Cypress ( Houston ) has a long story of mishaps, frustration, and $$.
Originally, the interior designer had suggested Feather Bloom grasscloth / sisal by Schumacher . I prepped the wall and prepared to hang the paper. But we discovered printing defects (very, very common with Schumacher), and other issues. Search here to see my previous posts.
We had to abort the install that day. This turned out to be a good thing, because, truth be told, the homeowners really didn’t like the Feather Bloom, but felt a little pressured to go with it.
So back to the vendor the ugly duckling went.
Then the homeowners took their time without the designer’s input, to look at wallpaper selections and purchase $1 samples they could see, feel, and tack up to the wall.
Their new choice (below) fits their style, color scheme, and pocket book much better (this option cost thousands less than the Schumacher).
The actual purchase was made through Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams store in the Rice Village (713) 529-6515.
Everything was done over the phone, and, to save the homeowners driving all the way into the city, I picked up the paper for them and delivered it to their home on install day.

Starting in the middle of the wall so I can place the very symmetrical pattern dead in the center of the wall.

The colors in the paper work beautifully with the green cabinets you see to the left.
And I love the way the airy feel and foliage and flowers compliment the open-air view outside the window.

This pattern is reminiscent of designs by William Morris, a designer of the Arts & Crafts period around the turn of the 20th Century. I’m seeing a lot of interest in these patterns of late.

Apelviken , Midbec , 33006 , A Street Prints , Spring, non-woven material made in Sweden , was very nice to work with and will hold up well for many, many years.
I installed using the paste-the-wall method , although you could also paste the paper.