This 1960 ranch style home in the Westbury neighborhood of Houston is like a time capsule of Mid Century Modern design. The doors, windows, moldings, cabinetry, and even most of the bathrooms are original – and in mint condition. The homeowners love the look, and wanted to honor that, while updating some of the rooms.
What fun! This wild pattern fills all those bills!
What’s extra cool is that the homeowners painted the walls and woodwork in the room a mauvy-purple color more than a year ago. I showed them a sample of this paper in the orange color (which I had hung in another client’s home in a nearby neighborhood, also Mid Century Modern), and they loved it. When they went to the wallpaper store (read below), the selection book showed this snazzy purple colorway. The shade of purple is the exact compliment to the paint colors they had chosen so long ago. BINGO!
This wallpaper pattern is by Graham & Brown, in their Super Fresco line, which is reasonably priced and easy to work with, as well as easy to remove when it’s time to redecorate. I hung it with the paste-the-wall method. It 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.
This 1960 ranch style home in the Westbury neighborhood of Houston is like a time capsule of Mid Century Modern design. The doors, windows, moldings, cabinetry, and even most of the bathrooms are original – and in mint condition. The homeowners love the look, and wanted to honor that, while updating some of the rooms. Grasscloth was all the rage in the ’60’s, so it was the perfect choice for the backs of these bookshelves in the family room.
I have to tell ya, covering this beautiful, original, perfectly maintained 1960 wood paneling with mud and a primer just about killed me. But since the wallcovering choice was grasscloth, the new look would be in keeping with the original feel of the house.
I don’t usually like grasscloth, because of the color variations (and many more reasons – do a Search – upper right corner) – But I was pleased with today’s product. The color was very uniform, and the material was very soft and pliable, as well as thin. It turned corners nicely and hugged the wall tightly.
This particular grasscloth has a bit more of a “nubby” texture than those with straight reeds, and this one had a nice sheen, too.
I wanted to avoid getting paste on that pristine wood, because I was afraid it might not wipe off without leaving residue, and also because I didn’t want to run a damp rag along the grasscloth, for fear of staining or bleeding. So I used my craft store cutting mat and a couple of different straightedges, to pre-trim the pieces to perfect right angels, so they would fit into the bookshelf alcoves, and also butt up against one another precisely.
I also used blue plastic tape (not shown) on the edges of certain pieces, to keep paste off the wood bookcase.
This grasscloth wallpaper is by Phillip Jeffries, a higher-end brand, and 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.
This 1960 ranch style home in the Westbury neighborhood of Houston is like a time capsule of Mid Century Modern design. The doors, windows, moldings, cabinetry, and even most of the bathrooms are original – and in mint condition. The homeowners love the look, and wanted to honor that, while updating some of the rooms.
They chose this surreal floaty-ball pattern for their music / reading room. I think it’s perfect!
This wallpaper pattern is by Wallquest, in their Ecochic line, one of my favorite brands. It 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.
The young couple who lives in this home in the Westbury neighborhood of Houston loves the modern contemporary look – everything in the home is all about straight lines, open spaces, clean, crisp, and sharp.
The bold pattern and Old World theme of this “Etched Arcacia” mural on an accent wall in the master bedroom is a great foil to all that simplicity. Yet the simple black & white color scheme and the straight lines that make up the design (look closely at the photos) coordinate perfectly with the modern design elements in the rest of the home.
This product comes as a pre-pasted, 8-panel mural, 12′ wide by 9′ high (I cut it shorter to fit the 8′ ceiling in this 50-year old ranch style home). In the first photo, you can spot the mural all rolled up in its package, on the left side of the bed. It is made by Sure-Strip, one of my favorite brands (manufactured by York). It was bought on-line from Anthropologie.
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This 1959 home is in the Meyerland / Westbury area of Houston, and is decidedly Mid Century Modern. The master bathroom had been nicely updated with granite countertops and sleek, honey-colored cabinets. But the dark grey walls studded with pimply home-handyman texture made the room dreary and uninviting. “I hate my bathrooms,” said the homeowner.
Well, we can change that. 🙂
What a fun pattern! This “mod” design screams Mid Century (can you say Nancy Sinatra and “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”?, and the color perfectly compliments the color of the cabinets. Once the paper went up, the whole room sprang to life – and it felt larger, too.
The homeowner totally loved the transformation!
This paper is by Graham & Brown, and has a durable vinyl surface on a thin non-woven substrate. The material is thin and pliable, clings closely to the wall, and was lovely to work with.
The walls themselves, though, were another matter. The extremely heavy texture had to be smoothed, which took two days. And hanging this rhythmic geometric pattern was greatly complicated by the un-plumb walls, un-level ceiling, un-straight outside corner … you get the picture.
Difficult to explain, but after a lot of fretting and experimenting and twisting paper and rehanging a couple of strips, I realized that I could not fight the irregularities of the room’s construction. So I opted for the theory of “keep the pattern motifs intact, even if they go off-kilter at the ceiling or outside corners.”
Fast forward to the finished room … It looks great. Most of the “imperfect” areas I was fretting over are not even noticeable. The homeowner loves it.
Hey – she loves it so much that she said she wants to spend the rest of the night in her new bathroom!
I hung this easy-on-the-eyes wallpaper on all four walls in a TV room in Westbury (Houston) several years ago. They had a water leak, and one wall plus a portion of another wall were damaged, and the contractors had to remove the wallpaper in order to do their repairs to the Sheetrock. As you can see in the top photo, they were able to salvage just one strip of the wallpaper.
When I consulted with the homeowners, I looked at the left-over paper they had stashed away (Note: Always buy a little extra paper, and store it in a climate-controlled place, as these people did, since you never know when you may have to call it to service.) They had only two full length drops on one bolt, and then a lot of shorter strips. The wall required six single rolls of wallpaper. I told them there was not enough to rehang the wall. Adding to the problem was that the wallpaper was discontinued and no more was to be found.
They loved the paper, didn’t want the expense of repapering the entire room, declined to use a company that could reproduce it – and didn’t want to live with a mis-match of patching all the odds and ends together.
Well, nothing I could do for them.
But, they were determined, and so sat on the floor one evening with the scraps of left over paper spread around them, measuring tools in hand, and spent a good couple of hours playing, measuring and plotting – and determined that the wall COULD be rehung – IF a few areas down low were left unpapered (the sofa would hide this).
I was skeptical, but went there today to see what I could do. Amazingly, they had put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and most of the wall could be covered with wallpaper of the correct pattern match. There were three strips that did not come all the way to the floor. But, rather than leave them with bare wall in those spots, I took some scraps and spliced them. Even though the pattern didn’t match, the mis-match was not very noticeable, and, besides, the sofa would hide it.
All in all, it was a rewarding day.
The wallpaper pattern is by Antonia Vella for Seabrook Wallpaper. It adds warmth and pattern to the room, yet is muted enough fade into the background, and works perfectly for this TV / reading room. BUT – don’t go trying to buy some… As I said, the pattern has been discontinued. 😦
I hung this textured, paintable wallpaper several years ago in the hallway of a ranch style home in Westbury (Houston). I was back to do another job today, and had a chance to get a photo of the paper once it was painted a soft Ceylon green.
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