Gannett News Service
Seabrook's "Mountain Style" collection includes this popular wallpaper that replicates the look of logs. Combined with contrasting ceiling paper and border, the log paper creates a warm, lodgelike feel.

Gannett News Service
Floral wallpaper and a large border can work well in an informal room that connects to the outdoors.

Interior decorators are getting stuck on wallpaper again

ELIZABETH BETTS HICKMAN, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published Saturday, March 9, 2002

Paint has ruled the walls, so to speak, for a while, but wallpaper is back, and you only need to glance at a fresh stack of design magazines to get the message.

Wallpaper, though, is one of those things that usually evokes an all-or-nothing opinion. Folks may remember adoring a beautiful, romantic English-country style bedroom dressed with a pretty floral wallpaper, or a perfect, papered powder room.

What they'd like to forget is the ugly underbelly of wallpaper: that horrific textured kitchen paper in yellow, black and orange from a wall in their past, the grasscloth that you could never completely remove, or the metallic that reminded you of tinfoil and inspired you to install a dimmer.

It is finally time to forget the 1970s. Wallpaper, like furniture and fabric, has made dramatic leaps forward. Today's crop of papers, including architectural patterns, florals and, yes, even metallics, don't reflect their now-distant ancestors.

A changing trend

So why has paint been so dominant, and cream or white paint at that?

"When it comes to it, what we were was a transient society for 10 years. We ended up with this white, beige world," says Sharon Hanby-Robie, a Pennsylvania-based interior designer and author of "My Name Isn't Martha But I Can Decorate My Home" (Pocket Books; $15.95). Hanby-Robie also is a huge fan of wallpaper and serves as the national spokeswoman for The Wallpaper Council, a trade association.

"Finally we're putting roots down again, and we're decorating to reflect our own personal taste and style, so color is finally back, style is finally back," she says. In the past, she adds, "We were more worried about pleasing the next person that's going to be in our house than ourselves," she adds. "Craziness."

For the past few years, wallpaper has generally been seen most frequently in powder rooms, bathrooms and guest bedrooms, but that might be changing.

"We are seeing it move much more throughout the house again," says Suzanne Ashley, director of product development for Seabrook Wallcoverings Inc., a Memphis company that distributes wallpaper nationwide and designs under the Seabrook Designs brand.

There is a new breed of papers that are both textured and colored. In some cases, she says, inks will have sand in them. "It doesn't just look textured. It is textured," she says.

Some papers, like those that look like crocodile or alligator leather, are created by techniques similar to those that stamp plain calf leather into faux crocodile or faux alligator skin. There also are wallpapers that do what paint just can't, like create the look of realistic log walls.

What about the wallpaper standby, wonderful, happy floral prints?

They're still hot sellers, but today you'll find them reflecting trends in furniture, like the move toward aged, antique finishes.

"So they look aged or worn," Ashley says. "It's sort of a vintage approach. It's very eclectic. It's a rose, but it's not a stuffy old English rose."

Another benefit to the aged finishes: They're easier to live with and don't overpower the eye.

Big rooms, big papers

With big rooms and high ceilings showing up in a lot of large new homes, the wallpaper industry has had to change its scale, too.

"Some of the best of the best is coming back," Hanby-Robie says. "Scenics are coming back. Some houses today have 22-foot ceilings. Let's think back to the 1700s. Same thing."

Another common problem encountered by those with an open-plan house or a staircase that descends into a room: Where do you stop, since the wall doesn't really stop?

To counteract this, the industry has created huge corners, or special patterns that are meant to work in such formerly awkward places.

"The scale has changed on everything," Hanby-Robie says. "We've had to come up to meet these new, big houses."

If you're interested in using wallpaper to add grandeur, papers to simulate crown molding, stone walls or a hall of grand columns have been around for a while, but they've been improved.

"Before, they looked theatrical," Hanby-Robie says. "The quality of the artists designing these papers today is better."

Not your mom's metallics

"Metallics right now are being used in ways they've never been used before," Ashley says.

"We don't want that really shiny, garish look."

Most people don't, either. That's why the hand-rubbed look with a gentle sheen adds depth without making one feel like they're going off the deep end.

"The fact that it looks like it's been around awhile is really big now," she says.

"Today's metallics are this wonderful fusion," Hanby-Robie says. "If you could combine silver and gold into a soft confection. It's not this tacky mirror finish we remember from the 1970s. It's like burnished gold, pewter and silver."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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