Pretty Paper
Hello there my fancy friends! Thank you so much for tuning in today. This podcast is all about giving you every ounce of interior design information you could possibly want, and maybe more. I especially like to give you the details on things that are easy to implement in your home, whether you’re a renter, a home owner, a DIYer, or you’re working with a contractor. Knowledge is power, and today we are looking at the glamorous world of wallpaper and wall coverings. This is a powerful way to give your space a ton of personality and make it feel customized and unique. It’s all about effort compared to impact - and wallpaper is one of those home-run materials that will completely change the way your room looks from just a day or two of work, that you can do yourself, if you want. It can also be a fantastic way to pull a room together. If you have a few pieces of mismatched furniture, in seemingly random colors, you can add a wallpaper pattern that incorporates them all, and suddenly your home looks super intentional. You can tell everyone you planned that color scheme from the start.
Now, it’s common to hear the same thing said about a great area rug, but wallpaper has a few advantages. One, the readily available wallpapers in the retail world, offer an huge library of selections. It’s easier to find a wallpaper print that matches an existing color scheme, than it is to find an area rug, trust me. Two, wallpaper is more visually forward. The color, texture, and pattern of your walls, or any vertical surface in your home, will catch the eye faster than a flooring choice, simply due to it being at natural human eye level.
Three, it won’t wear or get coffee spilled on it quite as often as an area rug, although splatters do happen, and we’ll talk about what makes wallpaper easy to clean a little bit later. Four, wallpaper, in most cases, will cost less than an area rug. Of course this varies, if you’re choosing a silk wall covering, that could easily cost more, but it can be hard to find a good, large area rug under $1000. Whereas there are many wallpaper options available for few hundred. Plus you’re getting more for your money, because as I mentioned before, wallpaper has the opportunity for a bigger visual impact.
Okay, are we all on the wallpaper train yet? Stay tuned to find out all about the different styles, materials, applications, and installations so that you can find the perfect wallpaper for your home.
But first, let’s talk about the Color of the Week. Temperatures are heating up for the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and while I personally struggle to stay cool during this time of year (I’m a cool weather person), I find it’s best to simply lean in to the heat and embrace the golden rays of the sun. Drink lots of seltzer and iced tea, keep the fans on high, and break out the breezey clothing. The summer is one long celebration of sunshine, we get extra daylight hours, and outdoor activities are everywhere. You can bring your celebration of the sun inside with Sherwin Williams paint color Decisive Yellow 6902. This bold, unapologetic yellow is a great way to highlight happy moments in your home, from your front door to the desk in your office. Pair this yellow color with warm, taupey neutrals, charcoal gray, and even some tomato red for an accent. Celebrate that sunshine.
The very first thing you want to do in your wallpaper journey is decide what type of wallpaper installation method is right for you. This is the most important functional decision you will make in this process. So there's three main types of wallpaper installation methods; non-pasted, pre-pasted, and self adhesive (often called peel-and-stick). Non-pasted wallpaper is the old fashion technique and this variety can often be the the most affordable of the bunch, but that's because there is extra legwork required. Because it's not pasted, whoever is installing the wallpaper will need to purchase wallpaper paste and apply it as each sheet is hung. This is the most elaborate and time-consuming method of wallpaper installation.
I remember seeing an old episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel decided to wallpaper one of the rooms in Lucy’s apartment, and there was just so much physical comedy involved with the whole process and I think they ended up wallpapering straight over a window because it was just so challenging. If you have practice hanging wallpaper this could be a great option. Traditional, non-pasted wallpaper produces the most permanent results of all the methods. This means, when it is installed correctly, non-pasted paper is the least likely to start peeling over time because it’s truly bonded with the wall surface. Non-pasted paper tends to be be super smooth in texture, easy to wipe down, and ideal for crisp, clean printed patterns. You may find that the selection and price of non-pasted paper is really exciting, but just like Ikea furniture looks cool and has a great price tag, there’s labor involved that needs to be considered. And if you change your mind a lot, or you think you might be taking the wallpaper down in a short period of time, this method requires steaming and scraping to be removed. You have been warned.
If you want a slightly easier and cleaner installation method, but still like the permanence of pasted wallpaper, consider using pre-pasted. This method had been around since the late 1800’s, and is similar to the idea of licking the back of envelope - there’s a semi tacky, dried glue on the backside, that is water activated, so all you need for installation is water and a brush, and of course patience. Definitely don’t lick it though, that’s just an analogy. Pre-pasted is the dominant product on the market today, because of it’s convenience and relative affordability. This type of paper is slightly easier to remove compared to non-pasted wallpaper, but it still requires steam and lots of time.
If you are a renter or just the type of person who likes to change things often, peel and stick wallpaper maybe the one for you. This product is one giant sticker on a roll and can be pulled up after installation without damaging the wall behind it, which makes it easy to place - if something isn’t aligning as you’re installing it, you can just lift up and start again. Plus, it’s meant to be removed. In fact takes less time to remove than it does to install. The downsides with peel and stick is that it comes with a premium price tag. Peel and stick wallpaper isn’t really paper at all, it’s a usually a polymer of some type, which drives up the cost. It also affects the crispness of how a pattern looks, as the printed ink isn’t quite as sharp as it would be on paper, but that’s usually only noticeable if you get awkwardly close.
This leads us to materials. Wallpapers can be made of many things. I see it as two major bucket categories, and this is a little different than how many designers classify wallcovering, but I think of it in terms of the end result look and feel. So you have smooth surfaces and textures. Knowing which of these you want, will help you in your decision making process to narrow down an actual material.
Smooth wallcoverings include paper, non-woven mixes, polyester, latex, cellulose, polyolefin, and many more. These are often man-made materials. In the world of professional interior design, there are tons of to-the-trade companies that specify the exact fiber or polymer composition of every product they sell. This help designers make decisions regarding durability, sustainability, cleanability, flammability, and touchability. In the consumer retail world (that’s where most people shop), the ingredients are often second to the look of the final product. So finding the exact content and make up of a specific wallpaper isn't always easily available, but you can look for keywords like smooth, wipeable, scrubbable, and satin. Smooth wallcoverings are easy to print on, so this is where you'll find fun prints like the large scale banana leaf pattern that got really popular five years ago, anything botanical, geometric, and classic patterns like toile. Toile, t-o-i-l-e, is a French pattern, usually a single jewel toned color printed on a white background, depicting pastoral scenes, leisure vignettes, and slice of life imagery. These were particularly popular in early American Colonial homes, but ride the trend cycle in and out over the decades. The company Flavor Paper has modern adaptations of this print that include vignettes such as elevated trains, a bust of Biggie Smalls, the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Other common smooth wall paper types include large scale murals, custom graphics, oversized photographs, and metallic foil patterns.
One common material, especially in commercial interiors, but also in the peel-and-stick world, is vinyl. Vinyl became super popular due to it’s almost indestructible nature, cleanability, and how well it holds dye colors. If you’ve listened to the episode called “Getting Better,” you know that many designers, including myself, avoid using vinyl because of its affect on the quality of the air inside your home, among many other things. But don’t worry, there are plenty of alternatives. In the peel-and-stick world especially, you can look for sustainable polymers from places like Spoonflower, York Wallcoverings has a Premium Peel and Stick line, and Etsy.
Now sometimes, we want something with a little dimension to it. That is where textured wallcovering enters the conversation. Textured wallcoverings can be made from a few different materials.
Fabric can be used as a wallpaper, when it is lined with a backing. High grade wallcoverings have a front finish and a backing material, and these are often two different types of materials. You’ll see terms like acrylic backed paper and paper backed fabric. The backing gives stability to the wallcovering, and it effects how it can be adhered to a wall. Some fabrics would change color and appearance if they were directly glued to a wall because the glue would seep through in uneven places, and it wouldn’t look very nice. Adding a backing opens up the world of fabrics to the world of wallpaper. Anything from sumptuous silk to natural grasscloth can be used. In fact, this was super popular at one point, when walls, upholstery and drapery where all made from the same printed fabric. Using a fabric wallpaper is usually a step up in price, but the look reflects that. Texture allows your walls to bring a hint of subtle interest, rather the overt boldness of a printed pattern on a smooth wallpaper. Bringing in the look of linen or other woven goods highlights your wall in a very subtle way. Printed patterns on a smooth base will usually be a more cheap and cheerful route, where as using texture can add a feeling of demur luxury.
And textured wallcoverings don’t stop at textiles. You can add a layer of textured fibers in a pattern, or what’s known as flocked wallpaper. This created a fuzzy, almost velvet like texture that is great for glam spaces. There are also super thinly sliced wood and cork veneer wallcovering, usually back with paper, that can make your walls look very high end and architectural. I’ve linked a few options for those in the show notes.
Now that we’ve covered the big ideas with materials, let’s talk about how and where to apply our beautiful wallpaper.
One note of preparation - any wall receiving wallcovering will actually telegraph it’s imperfections into the covering put over it, so it’s worth it to get a smooth primed surface to work with. Unfortunately, wallpaper is not going to hide crumbing plaster or uneven drywall.
The first thing I will tell you, is that if you have a bathroom with a shower or a tub, this is not the room for wallpaper. In some cases, you may be able to get away with a really strong seal from a non-pasted paper, but most pre-pasted and definitely all peel and stick will be vulnerable to the humidity created by the shower. If you have a powder room with just a sink in a toilet, paper away. But if you want to add interest to your bathroom, consider stenciling or of course, beautiful tile work.
One place that wallpaper can really do some big favors, is in an open plan home. You can use wallpaper to help define different areas within an open plan. My favorite application of this is defining a dining room, so pick one or two walls directly next to your dining room table, and put up a wallpaper that you love and one that coordinates well with your furniture. Make sure that the walls you select, can be papered in their full length. Meaning, you never want to stop your wallpaper in the middle of the wall. Wallpaper looks best when it stops and starts on an inside corner. Inside corners are the kind you see when you have a standard room with four walls. Each corner projects inward and provides a level of protection for the end of the wall paper. It would be harder to accidentally snag or pull on this type of corner. Avoid transitioning from wallpaper to any other material on an outside corner, meaning when two walls meet and project out into a space. This type of corner is very easy to bump into, and would require a corner guard to protect the wallpaper - which is of course an option, but as we try to plan for simplicity and efficiency, avoiding outside corners can make everyone’s lives easier.
Where you decide to put your wallpaper is subject to the basic principles of design, just like any other element - so we want to consider balance, hierarchy, repetition, proportion, and contrast. Ask yourself - Where are the colors or shapes from your wallpaper showing up again in your room? Do you want your wall paper to be the most eye catching element in your room, or do you want it to subtly dance in the background? Are you using the wallpaper as a special accent on a single wall, or completely enveloping the room in it? What other elements in the room are different enough from the wallpaper to prevent everything from blending in together?
Using wallpaper as a single accent wall is an easy way to bring pattern or texture into your home. Chose a wall that you want to anchor, such as the wall with your headboard or sofa. Don’t forget, you can treat your ceiling as your accent wall too, and the trend of apply wallpaper to the ceiling is a really fun way to add vibrancy to your home.
Do you have any wallpaper in your home today? It’s a fun element to play with and now that you know that basics, you can really start to let your imagination and intuition run free. Don’t forget, there are a few links in the show notes to great wallpaper companies that you should definitely check out. I hope you have a great day, and I will talk to you next time.
