You don’t see it right away when you’re close, but when you stand back and view a larger expanse of paper on the wall , OR pull the pattern up on your phone, it’s evident that this pattern has a strong central image (the red roses in a circle ) , as well as a secondary image , which is the heart-shaped blue green leaves . Here I’ve centered the ring of roses in between the two medicine cabinets , as well as between the light sconces. This makes for a pleasing look of symmetry in this master bathroom . Something that most people would not even notice concretely . But there would still be a feeling of equality and balance as you spend time in this bathroom .
I tweaked things a bit, to make this scheme work. Then I got the design centered on the wall seen to the left in this photo . The pattern also landed pretty near centered over the door . Additionally, I love the way it looks, peering from one room into the other , all nicely lined up . But ” balancing the pattern ” is much more than futzing with the vertical elements. For instance, there are also horizontal motifs to consider. With this “Wildwood” wallpaper pattern , I wanted to place the red flower “circles / hayloes ” where they would be evenly distributed ” ) . So, as you can see, I have “balanced” those red circles (three of them) evenly between the ceiling and the wainscoting. In addition, the homeowner worked hard to find a fun and fresh wallpaper pattern that included colors that worked well with the glossy murky blue tile and chairrail . This design is called Wildwood and is from York (the company who makes Rifle Paper material ).
Before. Grey and boring . The built-in banquette seating has been removed.Finished.Closer look.Showing the pattern centered on the wall, and with the shutters. The dimensions of the paper not corresponding well with the width of the window, along with logistics of pattern placement at the ceiling line but starting my first strip under the window all created some plotting and engineering challenges. Fun, but time consuming. But it turned out great!The original idea was to just paper the nook area, ending at the vertical door molding. But it would have looked odd to stop the wallpaper above this doorway. So the homeowner and I decided to run the paper along the top of the doorway, and then down the left side (not shown), which dead-ends into some cabinets and the granite countertop. It looked good and was the right call.It tickles me that this is quite obviously a riff on the very popular Strawberry Thief wallpaper pattern by William Morris , which is quite popular right now (do a Search here to see my installations of it). When a company comes up with a hit, you can be assured that a competitor will soon be making its own version of it. The original has a lot more color, but this version is limited to just two colors. Even though there is a lot of contrast between the black and the white , the pattern doesn’t feel busy, because the design is so close and tight . There is a lot of symmetry , repetitiveness , and balance in Wm Morris and similar styles . I love the raised ink texture to this material . Whoops! A slight pattern mis-match . The overall design is busy enough that small imperfections like this (as well as some color variations / shading ) are not really noticeable . It’s odd to me that the printing defects are different in different strips / rolls of the wallpaper . You’d think that if the print roller was out of whack, it would create the same image every time it strikes the wallpaper surface. Or maybe it’s the trimmers that are off. If they had cut 1/16″ more off that left edge, we might have a perfect pattern match . The manufacturer is York , one of my favorites , in their Sure Strip line, also one of my favorites. It’s in the Magnolia Home collection , by, yes, Joanna Gaines , of HGTV fame with the show Fixer Upper . SureStrip is a pre-pasted , thin , flexible , non-woven material that is easy to hang . It’s also easy to remove when you’re ready to redecorate , because it’s designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece with no damage to your walls . installer houston birds
This young couple hosts the mother / mother-in-law a few times a year, and are lucky enough to have a private spare bedroom for her. To make it special, they wanted to jazz up the area a little. Enter this fun and whimsical wallpaper pattern .The room before was a pretty shade of murky teal – but needed personality and warmth. The wall started out with a light orange peel texture . I skim-floated the wall, and then sanded it smooth . Along the baseboard at the floor , here’s the dust from sanding , along with the sanding sponge I use – this is a modern take on the idea of wrapping sandpaper around a block of wood . I tack painter’s plastic across the wall from ceiling to floor to prevent dust from getting into the room or onto the furniture . Here’s the wall smooth and primed , ready for wallpaper . Since this is a dark wallpaper and I want to be sure that the white wall does not peek out from behind the seams, I stripe dark paint along the wall under where the seams will fall. Because non-woven papers don’t expand when wet with paste , it’s simple to measure the width of your strips and plot out where each seam will fall. Use the laser level as your guide . Do a Search here (upper right hand corner) to read more about this technique. I use craft paint from Texas Art Supply (or any hobby store ), diluted with water from a Gatorade bottle cap , and applied with a scrap of sponge . Further insurance is taking a chalk pastel (never oil pastel – oil bleeds and will stain wallpaper) and running it along the edge of the wallpaper strip – from the backside to avoid staining the surface – to cover the white substrate the wallpaper is printed on. This is to prevent white from peeking out at the seams , which can happen with dark papers. Centering the first strip in the middle of the wall, and using my laser level to ensure the strip is nice and straight and plumb . Note: The strip is not centered on the wall. The dominant pattern element is. Notice that the center of the dominant pattern motif – the white circular flower – is 3.5″ to the right of the left edge. This means that I had to position the left edge of the wallpaper 3.5″ to the left of the center of the wall, in order to get the round white flower to fall down the center of the wall. When you look again at the finished photo, you’ll notice that the white flower falls down the middle of the walls, and that it also appears at equal distance from both the right and left walls. Most people wouldn’t be able to put their finger on this symmetry , but it is something they subconsciously notice , and it lends a feeling of orderliness to the room. As orderly as you can be, that is, with pigs dancing around the meadow dandelions ! Finished accent wall . The three other walls painted in blue were a bit of a surprise, because one would think the more dominant color of green would be used. But with so much green in the wallpaper, green on the walls, too, would have been too much, perhaps. I like the cool feeling that the blue creates . There is plenty of the exact same blue in the wallpaper pattern to tie the walls and wallpaper together. Close up shows the stamped printing technique . You’ve gotta love a frolicking pig in a hand-knitted sweater! This pattern is called Hoppet Folk and is in the Wonderland line by Borastapeter , a Scandinavian company . It’s a nice, sturdy but flexible non-woven material that can be hung via the paste the wall installation method . In addition, this product will strip off the wall easily and in one piece , with no damage to your walls, when it’s time to redecorate. This is a very popular pattern, and I’ve hung it more times than I can count, just in the last two or three years. It does come in other colors – but most people gravitate toward this black version. The townhome is in the Rice Military area of central Houston .
See how that wall is 38″ wide? And the bolt of grasscloth is 36″ wide? So two strips of wallpaper are needed to cover this wall. You don’t want a 36″ wide piece and then a 2″ wide piece. Much better to have both strips the same width. This makes each strip 19″ wide, with a seam centered down the middle. Much more pleasing to the eye. Note that it does take extra paper to do this, because the 17″ wide leftover strips can’t be used anywhere else. But the overall visual symmetry is worth it.
Originally, the whole room was this not-quite-milk-chocolate brown. Dark can look good in a small room like a powder room. But stark dark with no pattern is often claustrophobic. Since this is a 100-year old bungalow with many layers of paint and potentially incompatible wall coatings, I was worried about unstable conditions inside the wall. Long story short, these conditions can lead to stress on the wall and delaminating layers, which also mean wallpaper seams that don’t stay down. Do a Search here to learn more. So the homeowners agreed to have the walls lined, as a way to avoid these potential problems. Read previous post for more info. The photo above shows the walls covered in the white liner. Finished!William Morris’s designs, and Strawberry Thief in particular, have been very popular the last two years or so. His patterns are studies in symmetry and rhythm , and evoke the era of Art Nouveau and even Art Deco . Last corner magically ended up with virtually no mis-match. Morris & Co is the manufacturer. This is a nice, supple, non-woven material, and can be hung by pasting the wall , although I prefer to paste the paper. It has a vinyl coating and will be fairly washable – good for this family with a toddler. It’s also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. See previous post for a pic of the label of the liner paper.
Primed and ready for wallpaper.Finished!I love the way the light fixture repeats the red color, as well as mimics the curve of the birds’ bodies. It’s almost like a hummingbird hovering over flowers in an English garden.Strawberry Thief is a popular pattern, and I have it coming up two more times, in the same neighborhood, also in renovated 1920’s bungalows. Usually you see it in the red or navy colorway. This is the first time I’ve seen it in this muted, pastel colorway. This color is available only from Morris & Co. The symmetry and the fluidity of the design are very pleasing. I’m seeing a lot of interest in William Morris designs lately. Many vendors are offering his originals, and many others are designing similar patterns. Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village showed me two new wallpaper books with patterns reminiscent of the Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau eras. See my post from April 17, 2022. This material is very user-friendly, being a non-woven material that can be hung by pasting the wall or by pasting the paper.
With some wallpaper patterns, it often looks best to plot where the design element will fall on the wall, both vertically and horizontally. In the top photo, I planned to have the “lotus” motif line up with the center of the wall horizontally (so it would align with the block paneling beneath it, and also look good behind the buffet, which will be placed in the center of this wall).
I also measured and planned ahead so that the lotus motifs would be distributed along the height of the wall evenly, without being chopped off at either the top or the bottom. The bottom, or the part just above the wainscoting, was most important, because it’s at eye level.
The wall with the buffet was important. But the wall with the window was also screaming for symmetry. I wanted either side of the window to be mirror-images. This took some doing.
Because I had centered the pattern on the buffet wall (to the left in the top photo), every other strip in the room would have to fall as it came off the roll, leaving no control over placement of the lotus design. Yet I still wanted that mirror-image.
But – I had a plan. And – in great part due to the forgiving layout of the room and the very short (2″) height of the wall over the entry door – I was able to fudge things and nudge things, and get the window wall to be symmetrical, and still have an invisible kill point at the last pattern join.
Too complicated to explain here, but I was very pleased to give this family this dining room with a nicely balanced and symmetrical wallpaper pattern lay-out.
See previous posts for info re pattern and interior designer.
As you see in previous posts, William Morris designs of the Arts and Crafts Period were all about nature and symmetry and balance.
When hanging wallpaper with a strongly symmetrical pattern (like this one), it looks good to balance / center the pattern on a main focal point, such as where the mirror will hang over a sink.
After you place that one strip, the pattern on the subsequent strips will pretty much fall as it comes off the roll.
In this room, after I centered the design on the vanity wall (see previous post), when the pattern worked its way across the walls to these narrow spaces between doors, it landed so that parts of the motifs would be cut off vertically. I thought I could make it look better.
So I tweaked things a bit and moved the floral elements so that the design would fall smack in the middle of the space between the doors.
This threw the pattern match off a bit above the doors.
But I’ll bet you can’t spot it.
And the finished effect is much more pleasing, with the flowers perfectly centered as they march their way down the wall.
These homeowners were so thrilled with the two accent walls I did for them in their Montrose (Houston) townhome last week, that they had me come back today and use left overs to paper this art alcove.
Even though the project involved only two 5′ strips, it took me several hours … note the perfect symmetry and balance of the pattern, both side-to-side and top-to-bottom.
It all serves as a beautiful background for the art painting and silver service. And, since it’s the same pattern and color as used in two other areas of the house, it ties the various rooms in the home together.
This classic trellis pattern is by Thibaut Designs is well over a hundred years old.
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