This couple in a beautifully updated 1939 home (4-plex converted to single family) in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston loves Africa and has traveled there several times. This spare bedroom on the first floor is devoted to Africa. On the walls they have hanging artifacts from their travels. And now they have a map of the continent , front and center! accent wall Close up looks like old paper that has been folded and stashed and aged , then uncovered and now placed on the wall. The mural is custom-sized to the wall. Remember to add 3″ to both width and height, to accommodate trimming and also wonky walls. The material comes as one big roll , with six panels all in one long piece. You have to unroll the whole thing and cut the panels apart . Note that five panels are 19″ wide. But that sixth one on the far right is only 16″ wide. I have cut off the 3″ overage. So when you’re plotting your lay-out, don’t go assuming that you will have six panels of the same width. That last panel is going to be whatever it needs to be, to custom-fit the size of the wall. Here, I’m laying the panels out to compare dimensions of width and length with those of the wall . Also checking to be sure the sequence of panels is correct. Note the diagram provided by the company on the white sheet of paper at the top of the photo. Here’s a close-up of the diagram / install instruction sheet . The mural is by Rebel Walls , a part of Gimmersta . I love their hundreds of selections, their material , quality , and excellent customer service. This particular mural is called World Map . I’m not sure, but it may come in other colors . Here’s the mock-up the company sent. The homeowner requested that Africa be placed in the center . You see what a good job Rebel Walls did with that. The mural that we received was actually a little smaller, and didn’t contain that much of America on the left, nor the far right sides of the countries on the right. Interestingly, the mural doesn’t meet up with itself. In other words, you can’t place two murals side-by-side. Look at the left, where America is. There’s only the eastern half of America. But there is no connecting western half of America on the right side of the mural. So you couldn’t order several of these and place them next to each other, to go around a bedroom , for instance. This may be because the mural was designed to fit one wall only , and to focus on Africa . It’s possible that the same mural is available so that it will connect to itself, and so that you could use it all the way around a room.According to the shipping box, Rebel Walls is also connected with Sandberg , another manufacturer of fine wallpapers . This stuff comes from Sweden . It is a non-woven material and can be hung using the paste the wall method . I often prefer to paste the paper , but on this simple accent wall, I did paste the wall . Saves space, because I don’t have to set up my big table . Non-woven wallpapers don’t expand when wet with paste like traditional papers do, which is a nice advantage for many reasons. They also are durable and stain-resistant . And are also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece, and with no damage to your wall when you redecorate . Non-woven is MUCH better than the false-hopes peel & stick material being pushed by some mfgrs today. Click my link to the right. Rebel Walls also includes special paste for this non-woven paper. This is important, because some other types of paste have been known to stain N-W’s, also called blushing – paper looks wet in areas, but never dries out . It’s believed that excess moisture is a reason for this staining / blushing . Which is the main reason why I don’t used the paste provided by RW. If the powdered substance has to be mixed with water to turn into paste , it stands to reason that it can be too liquidy and could bleed through the surface of the wallpaper, causing staining. I prefer a pre-mixed paste made by Roman called 780 . You can also use Roman 838 . These both have lower moisture contents, and have good record of not staining wallpapers . Most Sherwin-Williams stores carry these pastes. But call first!
Before, primed and ready for wallpaper . Just about everything in this house is white – walls , furniture , accessories . Serene, but kinda blah.The homeowner wanted to add a pop of color and chose the powder room to be the fun room . I love the way the pattern seems to push the walls away and makes the room look larger . In addition, the strong vertical element of the tree trunks adds a lot of energy to the space. I love the burnished gold fixtures with the green paper . This very popular wallpaper pattern is called Raphael and is by Sandberg . It comes in a lot of colors – I’ve done a bunch of them! This is made in Sweden and is a non-woven material , also called paste the wall . It is more durable and breathable than traditional papers, and will hold up nicely in a bathroom . The home is in the Oak Forest area of Houston . installer installation
Vanity area primed and ready for wallpaper.Finished. The soft murky blues meld so nicely with the carrera marble countertop. Opposite wall before.The pattern has a strong upward movement, as well as lush fullness from the leafy areas. Rear window wall. This room had a number of intricate moldings to trim around. Close up.Detail.Raphael is a very popular pattern. Do a Search here (upper right corner) to see my previous installations of this wallpaper. The material is called non-woven , and can be hung by pasting-the-wall or pasting the paper. I prefer to paste the paper, as it makes the material more pliable, and also gets paste to difficult-to-access areas, such as behind the toilet. One big advantage of non-wovens is they don’t expand when wet with paste, and so you can get accurate measurements. And also there is no booking time, so you can paste and head straight to the wall to hang each strip. Houston wallpaper installer
This family has lived all over the world, including several years in Denmark. The mom has definitely picked up a love for the cool colors and sleek look of Scandinavian decorating. Here is a corner of the entry, before, and a peek into adjoining rooms.Cream and silvery grey on white tree foliage add just a touch of texture and warmth, while keeping with the all-white color scheme in this home. The room consisted of four corners of wall space, and four chunks of shorter areas over doorways. Note how the cool light fixture repeats the look of peeking through branches. They are going to trade out that yellowish bulb for a whiter one. The wallpaper has a slight raised ink texture. This is Sandberg ‘s popular Rafael pattern. I’ve hung it a number of times, but this is the first time in the white-on-white colorway. This is a non-woven material , and will strip off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate. It was flexible and quite nice to work with. The home is pretty new, very contemporary, and is in the Montrose / Museum District / Rice Village area of Houston.
This nicely renovated bungalow in the Houston Heights had a 3-room suite in the rear of the house. Included were a mud room, a walk-in pantry, and a vestibule leading to the kitchen. This photo shows the mud room before wallpaper. The paper will be installed above the wainscoting. The mud room finished. I plotted so the trees would land evenly balanced (centered) on the wall.Pantry beforePantry afterFrom kitchen looking through vestibule into mud room, before.Same area finished. A very, very cool 3-dimensional affect!Another view of the mud room. The blue colorway of the wallpaper works beautifully with the khaki color of the woodwork. The vestibule had four doors, and thus four areas in between the doors. In the two larger spaces, which flanked the pantry door, I futzed with the width of the strips so that I could place the trunk of the tree down the center of each space. I didn’t want all four areas to have the tree down the center, so in the third I let the pattern fall as it would, which placed the tree trunk to the left of center. This was a softer look. Sorry – no photo. The fourth space was only about 6″ wide, and the tree trunk would be much too distracting here. So I again manipulated the width of the strips so that only foliage showed between the door moldings in that last space. Sorry – no photo.Close upThis very popular pattern is called Raphael and is by Sandberg, a Swedish company. Their papers are quite nice. They are on a non-woven material. There are quite a few advantages to these non-wovens, both while working with them and after they are up on your wall.
The ceilings in this dining room in the West University neighborhood of Houston are more than 11′ high – and this vertical tree pattern visually swoops them even higher!
I love the hand-painted look of this paper. Actually, it’s machine-printed on a non-woven material, and can be hung via the paste-the-wall method – but I find the paste-the-paper process to be more effective.
The wallpaper is called ” Raphael ” and is by Sandberg, which is affiliated with Scalamandre.
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