I (heart) Wallpaper!

by Laura Knight-Keating

I am OBSESSED with wallpaper. I know I’m not alone. It’s been making a huge resurgence thanks to companies, young and old, who are creating wallpaper for the modern world. There is literally something for everyone – an amazing range of products, in terms of style and installation – from extremely adventurous to super conservative, temporary to permanent, textured, paintable, even glow in the dark!

Growing up we had this very heavy, completely overwhelming patterned wallpaper that covered our entryway, climbed the stairs, covered the hallway and as if that wasn’t enough – the same pattern was my parent’s bedspread and the curtains in our family room and on our patio doors. There wasn’t a single room in our house that didn’t have some view of this hideous (sorry, Mom and Dad!) pattern. Black background with huge coral flowers and teal green leaves with swirly vines. This bold and somewhat gothic paper replaced some equally frightening 1960s version that probably haunts the family who lived there before. The smell of old, wet wallpaper being steamed off our walls is forever burned into my sense memory. It was really enough to put a person off wallpaper for life. But then these came along…

Accent walls, powder rooms, stair treads, inside cabinets, on the ceiling, behind shelving, on shelving – I even saw an image where someone had wallpapered their refrigerator! I applaud them.

I would wallpaper everything. I know I’m a little late in my discovery. This trend has been growing for ten years or more. It just took me a little longer to throw off the 80s version. I also didn’t consider it initially because I rent my apartment and I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest the time and money on something I might have to leave behind. But then came these….