Glamming Up and Brightening Up a Master Bedroom

This young family, in the Tammaron subdivision of Katy in far west Houston, has been in their home for two years, but had never gotten around to decorating their master bedroom. (Look closely, and you’ll see the protective plastic still on the mirrored parts of the headboard.) With a new baby coming next week, whom they plan to have share their bedroom for a while, they wanted to get the room’s décor pulled together so that when the baby comes, she’ll be all they need to focus on.

I am usually booked several months out with work, but I had a schedule change and was able to get this family’s paper up – a mere three days before the baby is due.

Originally, the whole room was painted a deep purple, which you can see to the right in the top photo. It was a pretty color, but it made the large room oppressively dark. In that top picture, the heavily textured wall has been smoothed and primed, and is ready for wallpaper.

The home has pretty contemporary furnishings. The wife’s taste is more glitzy and glamory than the husband’s. So she had to choose something that went with their modern style, but was not so shiny or highbrow that her husband would be uncomfortable.

The second photo shows the finished accent wall. I think she did a super job of choosing a paper with shine and glitz, but that does not overwhelm the room with Hollywood sparkle or femininity. And that one accent wall does much to brighten the dark room.

This wallpaper pattern is a textured, shiny vinyl on a non-woven backing. It was a paste-the-paper procedure, and was very nice to work with. When it’s time to redecorate, the paper is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece.

The paper is by York Wallcoverings, 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.

Finding Spacemen in Wallpaper

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The danger of pointing this out to a homeowner is that, once your eye learns to pick it out, from now on to forevermore, you will be seeing …

Spacemen in the wallpaper.

Look above the center diamond. There is a spaceman jumping upwards into the stratosphere. Next look to either side of the diamond. There are twin spacemen, with their helmets pointing right and left, away from the diamond.

Elsewhere on the paper, there is a distinct cat’s head.

And you thought it was just an ink blot!

This design is by Candice Olson for York Wallcoverings.

Another Classic Pattern in a Traditional Style Home

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In my previous post, I put a classic damask pattern in a powder room. Right outside the powder room is a side entry vestibule, and this “diluted damask” pattern was hung on one wall in that entry.

In this pattern, which is similar to a damask, the design is thinner and more spread out. The background also has silvery tones, and the paper compliments the paper in the powder room very nicely.

This wallpaper is in the Sure-Strip line by York Wallcoverings, and is a thin non-woven material, and is prepasted. It was very nice to work with, and is one of my favorite brands.

Big and BOLD Flower Power in a Powder Room

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My previous post shows the serene dining room I did for this young family a month ago. Today they switched up the mood, using this totally HUGE watercolory floral in their powder room. I always say, you can get away with a lot of drama in a small room like a powder room.

The last photo shows the true colors of the paper. The teal and tan colors look super with the granite countertop of the vanity, and the colors coordinate very nicely with the soft aqua grasscloth in the dining room, and the artwork and other furnishings throughout the rest of the house.

This wallpaper pattern is in the Cary Lind line by York Wallcoverings, and was a delight to work with. It was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Chocolate Brown Trellis in a Powder Room

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This trellis pattern is very popular, and has been knocked-off by many different wallpaper manufacturers. I hung this in an under-the-stairs powder room in West University Place, in Houston, for a family expecting their first child very soon.

This version is by Ronald Redding, by York Wallcoverings. The white is a thickish raised ink, looking and feeling a little like gesso. The dark brown background is a thick and stiff non-woven material, which is a little tricky to work with. It’s main benefit is that when it’s time to redecorate, it is supposed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece.

This material is also a paste-the-wall product, although the manufacturer says you can paste the paper too, if you prefer. There are pros and cons to each method, and today I chose to paste the wall. The wallpaper and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Classic Trellis in a Montrose Powder Room

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I didn’t take a “before” picture, because the bathroom, clad in safe khaki paint, was depressingly boring. The new wallpaper changed all that!

Trellises are a popular pattern these days. I’ve hung this before in tan-on-white, black-on-white, and in hot-pink-on-white. This homeowner opted for a chocolate-brown-on-white. You can see that it looks fantastic in this powder room. The material was very nice to work with, too.

This wallpaper pattern is by Antonia Vella for York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

“Almost” the Imperial Trellis Design

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This is a handsome (and more affordable) knock-off, of a classic wallpaper pattern called the Imperial Trellis, that has been around for, well, for maybe more than 100 years. I have hung it in a number of colors, but this is the first time to do it in such a dramatic and bold dark grey color. Unfortunately, my danged camera ate most of my photos, including shots of some tricky and impressive measures I had to take to keep the pattern matched while dealing with some very un-plumb walls.

Here is the one shot I have. It tells a lot. This perfectly centered first strip of wallpaper took me about 40 minutes to hang. I had to find the center point on the wall based on the faucet (a pic of the sink and faucet disappeared – thanks, cheapie camera!) and the light fixture (you can see a photo of that), and then calculate how that translated to the placement of the pattern on the bolt of wallpaper, and then where I should line up the edge of the first strip of paper, so that the center of the design aligned with the faucet and light fixture.

That’s the Cliff Notes version – a whole lot more math and engineering and planning went into that first strip. 🙂

I hung this in the powder room in a new home of a young family in the Woodland Heights section of the Heights neighborhood of Houston.

This wallpaper pattern is by Ronald Redding, for York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Why Have a Spookily Dark Cave, When You Can Have Electrifying Candice Olson?!

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Painted with a dark brown semi-gloss paint, this powder room was broody and close. The look had served the homeowners well. But when it came time to update, they craved something with more life. The perfect choice is this geometric pattern in gold metallic / Mylar on black by Candice Olson – yes, that star of HGTV and magazines and more.

Accessories make the room. The interior designer had the ceiling painted a dark bronzy gold, which perfectly complimented the gold in the wallpaper. And he did a fabulous job when he found this light fixture with angles that mimic the wallpaper.

This wallpaper pattern is called Velocity, #DE8817, by York Wallcoverings. It was very nice to work with, remaining supple and workable with a long open time, and with seams that closed up nicely. (The tiny bumps you see will disappear as the wallpaper dries.) I hung it in a home in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Houston.

The interior designer is Neal LeBouef of L Design Group, in Houston, Texas. http://www.ldesigngroup.com/bio.html I loved working with Neal. He is a delightful, upbeat person, his design sense is spot-on, he is a turn-key guy (meaning, he can handle every aspect, from choosing a paint color to having a sofa reupholstered to having a leaky faucet fixed, all while the home owner is at work and then comes home to find that “everything is done!”).

I LOVE It When the Pedestal Sink is GONE!

Wow, was I happy to come to work today, and discover that the homeowner had removed the pedestal sink. These free-standing sinks are real buggers to hang paper around, and under, and around all those pipes.

Not having it there meant saved me about 40 minutes of time, gave the homeowners a neater look around the pipes (a decorative escutcheon will go around the pipes and drain to dress it up a little more), and it meant that there is no cut edge at the top of the sink, which eliminates the worry of splashed water causing the wallpaper to curl.

This textured peacock pattern is by Ronald Redding by York Wallcoverings, and was sold by Ethan Allen’s Friendswood (Bay Brook) location. It went in a powder room in the Clear Lake / Seabrook area.

Manufacturer’s Seam Trimming & Pattern Placement

In the first photo, you see the right edge of a roll of wallpaper. Most of the time, the pattern crosses the seam, and has to be matched up with the coordinating part of the pattern on the next strip of paper.

Here, the factory has cut the paper so the seam does not bisect any part of the pattern. I LOVE this!! It gives me the flexibility to move the pattern up or down the wall, as needed.

You see, almost all ceiling lines are not level, and if you hang your paper true-to-plumb, and match the pattern horizontally from strip to strip, you could end up with a pattern motif moving up or down the wall diagonally, instead of hugging the ceiling line.

Because of that, I generally will not place a prominent design element at the top of the wall, but instead will put something that will be less noticeable, in case the ceiling starts go to crooked. However, with this particular pattern’s seams having been cut in between the striped trellis design, I was able to position every strip so that the diamond motif was at the top of the wall. See Photos 2 & 3.

This wallpaper pattern is by Antonia Vella for York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.