Moody and dark. A great, snug place to hunker down and spend the day on the computer , working from home . But maybe a little too much dark ? An accent wall brightens the space and adds interest . Makes a day at work more inviting. BTW, those windows with their bull-nosed edges / rounded corners are a bear to hang wallpaper around, requiring special techniques. I won’t go into details, but, after applying my wallpaper primer, just this one wall took me about six hours. Surprise! Look closely and notice the jungle theme , with palm trees and leopards . I centered the pattern between the windows , for a balanced look. Close up. See the fibers on the torn edge of the wallpaper strip ? This is a non-woven material , also called paste the wall , and has a 20% polyester content . Thus the fibers. This stuff is simpler to hang than traditional wallpapers . Also more washable and stain-resistant , and will strip off the wall easily and with no damage to the wall when you redecorate later. These days, most people don’t use land lines or phone jacks . So I removed the wall plate , and stuffed the connector into the wall . Then I hung the wallpaper over the hole / box . It’s right above the head of the cat on the left. If the homeowners ever want to access the phone line , they can easily cut the wallpaper to open up the box , then reconnect it and then screw the wallplate back into place. The wallpaper is by York , under the designer Ronald Redding . The label says it’s a paste the paper installation method , but in actuality, the instruction leaflet enclosed inside the roll is correct – it can be hung via the paste the wall method . Usually I prefer to paste the paper . This is a newish townhome in the Sawyer Yards area of Houston .
Incredibly boring and blah powder room in a newish townhome in the Montrose area of Houston. Wow! Now THIS makes an IMPACT!!!This is not an Andy Warhol design, but it’s exactly like what he liked to create. Shot of mirror over vanity. Pattern is perfectly centered over mirror and coming down both sides.Lips! Pic is off-hue … The background is really a vibrant yellow. Rolling out the material. Each ” roll ” contains three strips, , or panels , each of which is 20.5″ wide by 118″ (just under 10′).The manufacturer is Mind The Gap , and the pattern is called Neon Kiss . This is a strong, un-tearable, stain-resistant non-woven material. It is easy to hang on flat walls, and you can use the paste the wall installation method. I usually paste the material , though, especially in bathrooms with vanities to cut around and toilets to squeeze behind. The substrate is soft and supple and easy to trim, and the surface is quite washable.
The homeowner has lived in more than a dozen homes, but has never had wallpaper. Previously this new townhome had boring beige walls. The homeowner wanted to liven things up and fell in love with this bold botanic and bird pattern. I love the slightly mottled background, and the way the colors pop against the black. There’s some slight shading / paneling ( difference in color ) between the strips, but it’s minimal. (It shows up more in this photo than in real life.)Likewise, the seams are much less visible in person. Close-up showing the lightly textured material. It looks a lot like an oil painting . This wallpaper is by BN Walls . It’s a non-woven / paste-the-wall material with a textured vinyl surface. It’s more durable and washable than most traditional papers, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. houston installer
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.
Accent wall before. With a second baby on the way, this home office is morphing into a room for Big Brother. Fun color and upward movement. The little guy will be able to live with this for many years, as it’s not strictly a nursery or baby pattern. A thin, flexible non-woven paste-the-wall product by Exclusive Wallcoverings. I loved this wallpaper, and enjoyed working with it. I used the paste the wall installation method. It’s thin and hugs the wall tightly, and will be slightly more washable than traditional papers. In addition, it’s designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. The townhome is in the Museum District area of central Houston.
Before. Utilitarian. After. Fun, energized, colorful, washable. As the homeowner said, the new lattice wallpaper changes the room from a pass-through to one where you love to spend time prepping meals. Bamboo trellis patterns like this have been popular for hundreds of years. A true classic!The wallpaper is by Exclusive Wallcoverings, a British company. The material is non-woven . It can be installed by paste-the-wall or by pasting the product . It is designed to strip off the wall easily and cleanly when you’re ready to redecorate.
The home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston.
Before: Semi-gloss paint on bad texture job.Virtually the same color, but texture and pattern add a warm and calm feel.Before: Khaki paintAfter: Serene, even Zen-like.Close-up shows pattern that can be matched so seams are disguised, as well as string fibers that add texture and dimension.
Nearly a full 100 years old, this cottage in the Norhill neighborhood of the Houston Heights has seen many updates and treatments. The master bath suffered from various dubious renovation attempts, as well as the aftermath of acts of nature, such as shifting foundation, leaky windows, humidity. The whole room just had a sort of “last chance” look about it.
Most of the room’s ails could be solved by ripping everything out down to the studs and then starting anew. But on most budgets – that ain’t agonna happen!
So I skim-floated the walls and sanded smooth. Just having smooth walls free of the drab khaki paint color helped left the pervasive glum feeling.
The homeowner chose this faux grasscloth, which is a stringcloth product made by Walquest, in their EcoChic line. I like this because, being a man-made material, the pattern can be matched from strip to strip, so you do not notice the seams like you do with a natural fiber material like real grasscloth. Also, the vertical strings on the wallpaper give texture and dimension, which is a look that many homeowners are craving these days.
The label insert tells you straight off that this material is not washable (they say you can gently vacuum it occasionally). Yet it is still more resistant to stains than true grasscloth.
This wallpaper was purchased from Ted at the Shade & Drape Shop on Kirby at Richmond. (They have another location on Voss near San Felipe.)
Before my baby blue primer hit the walls, this hall bathroom was all white – white walls, white tile, white vanity and mirrors and sink. Just a little bit of light grey color, and a simple white line drawing on this wallpaper do wonders to give this room warmth and personality. The design reminds me of a fairy tale. The family is bowled over by the change!
The paper is by Borastapeter, a Scandinavian company. It is a superb product – washable, easy to strip off when it’s time to redecorate, soft and supple enough to make hanging it in tight areas easier, seams are virtually invisible, non-woven material so can be hung via the paste-the-wall method (I pasted the paper instead).
The interior designer for this job is Stacie Cokinos of Cokinos Design. The home is in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston.
Originally, this family room in a recently and beautifully renovated and enlarged home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston wasn’t exactly “all white” – but the ecru colored walls were pretty close. The home owner wanted to warm up the walls, as well as tie this room to the blue Tartan plaid wallpaper used in the living room. Additionally, she noted that since three rooms in the front of the home had beautiful wall treatments (meaning, of course – wallpaper! 🙂 ), with the white kitchen and pale family room, the house felt “top heavy.” It was time for some counterbalance in the back of the home!
Originally she considered grasscloth. But after I explained about the noticeable seams and drastic color variations between strips, she took my suggestion and checked out this Bankun Raffia, a fabric-backed vinyl product that is embossed with a basket-weave texture, and has a pleasing glazed-wash finish effect. And … the color is quite uniform, so you don’t see seams or panels, as with real grasscloth.
Unlike most wallpapers, this product is very durable and washable, and it even strips off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate. Thanks to the fabric backing (instead of the more common, lower-end paper backing) it’s one of the few vinyl products that will hold up to humidity in a bathroom.
Another benefit is that the beautiful woodwork in this room is no longer lost in a sea of white, but stands out against the dark wallpaper. The color is navy, but because the room has a lot of white woodwork, as well as two walls of 8′ high windows, the room still feels open and airy.
This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and 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.
This young family in the West University Place neighborhood of Houston started out with another installation company that was not a good fit. They also started out with a wallpaper selection from a company that I find to be of poor quality (Hygge & West). I was honored that they let me take on the wallpaper install. AND that they listened to my suggestion to explore other manufactuers … the paper they chose is superior in quality, and is a far more charming and fitting design for their young son.
The walls originally had a light texture that I skim-floated over, then sanded smooth, and then primed with Gardz.
The new wallpaper is very similar in color to their original choice of palm leaves, so they could keep the trim and wainscot paint that had already been applied.
Whereas paper from the original manufacturer is known for curling and disappointing “pouches” at the seams, their final selection from Boras Tapeter (a Scandinavian company) is some of the most cooperative and best performing paper I have every worked with.
The seams are invisible, the material doesn’t expand (no pattern distortion or screwed up measurements) and it doesn’t shrink (no gaps at the seams). There is no booking time, so each strip can be pasted and then hung immediately. It can also be hung via the paste-the-wall method. It hugs the wall tightly and turns corners nicely. It doesn’t crease easily, as many thicker non-wovens do. When it’s time to redecorate, this non-woven material is designed to strip off the wall easily and with minimal damage to the wall. And the surface is more washable than most, making it well suited to a young child’s room.
And best of all, the “Wonderland” design, with frolicking animals and whimsical foliage, is much better suited to a child’s room than the original palm leaf option.
This wallpaper pattern is by Boras Tapeter, and 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.
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