Wild Retro Flower Power

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 .

Popular ” Raphael ” in Heights Mud Room

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 before

Pantry after

From 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 up

This 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.

Doggone Cute Wallpaper!

If you’re stuck working from home, and you’re dachshund-crazy, how can you make your home office more invigorating? Cover the walls with cute, irreverent dachshunds!

The pattern is called Tillsammans. Sorry, I can’t tell you the name of the manufacturer – because I can’t read Swedish! 🙂

It is a non-woven material and was easy to work with. I used the paste-the-wall installation method. The paper went on one accent wall in the home office.

This home is in the new Pomono development in Manvel, a bit south of Houston.

From Dark and Dated to Soft and Welcoming

This powder room in the West U neighborhood of Houston was decorated around the unique dark green pedestal sink and toilet. Back when the house was built, in 1992, the black floral wallpaper was a fun and in-vogue choice for this room. But by 2018, the look was dated, and some of the seams were succumbing to humidity and splashed water, which were causing curling. (2nd photo)

So the old black vinyl paper was stripped off. (3rd photo) The new paper still looks good with the plumbing fixtures, but it is bright and airy, and has a softness to it. But it’s not a sleeper – look closely and you’ll see a wonderland of fun characters playing and gallivanting through the forest. (4th photo)

This wallpaper pattern is by the Swedish company Boras Tapeter. While this particular choice is monochromatic and muted, the company has a wide variety of very playful designs with a whole lot of color – all the while reflecting the simple, clean-lined Scandinavian look. Interestingly enough, I have another client family looking at patterns from this same brand.

Additionally, the quality is great, and it was very nice to work with. It’s a non-woven material, and is designed to be a paste-the-wall install process – but I pasted the paper instead, which makes it more pliable and cooperative, especially around complicated areas like the fluted pedestal sink. Another advantage if the non-woven products is that they are engineered to strip off the wall easily and with minimal damage to the walls, when it’s time to redecorate.

The paper was bought at below retail price from 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.