This is a beautifully renovated and updated 2-story 1920’s bungalow in the Heights neighborhood of central Houston. Unlike the trend for homes that are all white or grey , this family went for color and fun . In other rooms, the woodwork and walls are painted cheery yet soft shades of blue , orange , yellow , salmon , and green . You may be able to find some photos by doing a Search here.The fun doesn’t stop with paint colors … Here is a colorful and visually active wallpaper pattern in the family’s dining room .The pattern might be overwhelming floor-to-ceiling , so the board and baton wainscoting gives the eyes a resting place. The pattern is called Swallowtail . Not sure if that refers to birds or butterflies , but either way, it’s a fitting description . You can almost feel the swooping and swirling wings . The homeowner chose sconces that coordinate beautifully with the theme of the wallpaper .The manufacturer is Flat Vernacular . The material was pre-trimmed , and was printed on a non-woven substrate . It could be hung by pasting the paper or by pasting the wall (I pasted the paper, as I usually do). It was nice to work with. Unlike most wallpapers that come in rolls of standard dimensions , this material was priced and sold by the yard , and came in bolts of continuous lengths .
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.
It’s a pain to wipe wallpaper paste off some surfaces. Plus, it’s not always guaranteed that you’ll get 100% of it. Here’s a trick to eliminate the whole issue.
A strip of thin, flexible plastic along the top of the strip of wallpaper will keep paste from transferring onto the wall surface.
Some folks cut strips from painters plastic – but I find that stuff too flimsy, plus it’s clear and difficult to see.
So lots of us use yellow “Caution” tape, or red “Danger” tape.
Place it at the top of the strip of wallpaper you are about to hang. Position your strip, and trim at the ceiling as usual.
Then remove your trimmed-off piece, and take the tape along with it. Be sure you get the piece below your cut, as well.
Smooth your strip of wallpaper back into place. No need to wipe paste off any surface, and no smears, either.
This trick can also be used at baseboards or other bottom surfaces, as well as in corners.
Textured wall has been smoothed and primed. This wallpaper pattern goes beautifully with the yellow adjacent walls, and is a nice change from the pink chosen for many girls’ nurseries.The pattern looks like an artist’s study.I love the drips and runs – it looks like a real watercolor painting. Wallquest is a good paper. Their EcoChic line is environmentally friendly.
The baby’s crib will be centered on this wall.
This home is in the Braes Heights neighborhood of Houston.
Cheery but not overwhelmingly bright, this “Parada” wallpaper pattern lightens this breakfast room while still keeping the feel warm and inviting.
I think the motifs look like those gummy “orange slices” candy with the sugar crystal sprinkles. 🙂
The manufacturer is Thibaut. While I usually love their products, this one was difficult to work with. It is a screen print, and is printed on a thick, stiff backing that sucked up all the paste before I could get strips to the wall. I experimented with several pasting techniques, and found that lightly sponging the back with water before pasting, and then booking the paper (folding pasted side to pasted side) and then placing in a plastic trash bag for few minutes, helped to both soften the material and prevent the paste from drying out.
I also rolled on a light coat of paste under where the seams would fall. This held the seams tighter to the wall. The material was still stiff and somewhat difficult to work into corners or trim around the detailed moldings.
The home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston, and the interior designer is Stacie Cokinos of Cokinos Design.
I adore this home – a cute, yellow-brick bungalow directly across from Rice University (Houston). It has been updated, yet kept mostly authentic to its 1930’s roots. I papered several rooms in the main house a few months ago, and was back today to paper the bathroom in the garage apartment.
Originally, the homeowner wanted wallpaper from Hannah’s Treasurers, which would be the real-deal old wallpaper from the 1930’s or 1940’s. https://hannahstreasures.com/ But for various reasons, she ended up choosing this more modern, yet timeless, pattern of ginger foliage. One deciding factor was that the colors coordinate perfectly with the green subway tile in the shower.
The wallpaper has a vinyl surface (resistant to water splashes and light stains) on a non-woven backing (much superior to the paper backing used on lower-end pre-pasted vinyls – read more on my page at the right). It was nice to work with, and should hold up well over many years.
The wallpaper is by York, in their designer line by Antonina Vella. It was purchased from Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near the Rice Village.
Bradbury & Bradbury is a well-established company based in California that produces wallpaper patterns in the style of by-gone eras – Victorian, Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, Oriental and more. I have their Raspberry Bramble, from the Victorian collection, in my own master bathroom. Do a Search here to see pics.
Bradbury has unveiled some new genres recently, including the ’50’s Atomic Age and the ’20’s Vintage. These new products are digitally-printed, which is a little different from their other papers, most of which are screen-printed.
Today I hung half of a master bedroom with their 2D-103. Those numbers are not very interesting, but the pattern is – see it in the photos above. It’s a lovely, cheery, and easy-to-live-with birds, branches, and flowers, on a soft yellow background.
Bradbury wallpapers come with a selvedge edge that has to be trimmed off by hand, using a razor blade and straight edge (not shown). This takes precision and a lot of sharp new razor blades – I spent two hours trimming paper for these two walls (with more to come tomorrow for the remaining two walls).
Once all that tedious trimming was over, the paper was a delight to work with. The seams melted together and were next to invisible. The paper hugged the wall nicely with no curling at the edges. Other companies with cantankerous papers could take a lesson from Bradbury.
This home is in the Bellaire neighborhood of Houston, and was partially destroyed in the flooding after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The homeowners love the vintage vibe of their older home, and when the house was rebuilt after the flood, they took great care to recreate the look of the original home … woodwork, flooring, kitchen cabinets, kitchen appliances… all are true to the home’s original look.
The original wallpaper had fallen victim to curled seams. This happens most often with lower-end pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid vinyl wallcoverings, particularly in humid rooms, like this bathroom. Adding to the list of no-no’s were an improperly smoothed wall and the lack of a primer.
The seams on these papers are never great to begin with. When there is humidity, it will find its way into the seams and onto the paper backing of the wallpaper. When this backing gets wet by humidity, it expands. When it expands, it has nowhere to go but out – pushing away from the wall. This results in a curled seam. This is not “loose” wallpaper, and the seams cannot be glued back down. In many cases, the paper backing layer of the wallpaper actually delaminates (separates from) the top vinyl layer.
The homeowner loved the pattern, particularly the blue birds, and bought the same exact paper to replace the other. I stripped off the old paper, took various steps to stabilize the unsound wall surface, then skim-coated the wall to smooth it, primed, and hung the new paper.
The look is cheery and bright, and looks fabulous with the pale yellow bead-board wainscoting. The seams looked good when I left, and will pull down tighter as the paper dries.
Still, these economical pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid vinyl wallpapers are not my choice for use in any room. And this particular brand (Norwall) just about tops my list for brands to NOT purchase.
After I spent a day getting these walls into good shape (see previous post), came the fun part – hanging the paper.
This was a Moroccan lantern style geometric pattern, in yellow on grey. The homeowner loves geometric designs, and she searched hard to find something in this style that would compliment the granite countertop in that came with the powder room in her family’s new home.
This pattern does all that very nicely.
The home is in Fleetwood, in west Houston.
This wallpaper pattern is by Brewster, in their A-Street Prints line. It is a non-woven material and is intended to be a paste-the-wall installation, but I find that pasting the material is a better method, for many reasons.
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.
Like animals? Like the forest? Like a little whimsy? Then this wallpaper pattern is for you!
I hung this in a children’s bathroom in a very nicely remodeled 1939 brick cottage in Montrose (inner Houston). The bottom 1/3 of the walls was shiny white subway tile, and the straight-lined vanity cabinets below were painted a strong, glossy yellow. The navy blue wallpaper pattern looked smart against the white tile, and the color perfectly complimented the yellow cabinetry.
This wallpaper pattern is called “Otomi,” and is in the Emily Isabella line by Hygge & West. This wallpaper can be bought on-line.
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