Phoenix Magazine

Phoenix Magazine

At Home Wallpaper
By: Stephanie Paterik

Off the Wall
“Wallpaper has gone from “ick” to “chic” as everyone from celebs to Scottsdale residents makes it look new again.

When Gwyneth Paltrow plasters nearly every room of her gorgeously appointed Hamptons home with wallpaper – as she did this summer – you know a trend is born.

Or reborn, as it were in the case of wallpaper, which enjoyed celebrity status in the late 80’s and early 90’s but quickly became the scourge of the interior design world, especially out West. Just mention the word and some local decorators still wrinkle their noses and say, “wallpaper?”

Yes, wallpaper. It’s back and better than ever. Better colors, better textures, better patterns and even better application (and most importantly de-application) methods. So even if you just peeled off the last remnant of paper from your bathroom wall in an attempt to modernize, read on, and you may decide to put it back up.

“It’s probably just as popular as it was 10 to 15 years ago,” says Tammy Sparks, a longtime wallpaper specialist at the Frazee Paint & Wallpaper Scottsdale Design Center. “The trade magazines are really pushing wallpaper. I think a lot of it is people realize you can get a lot more styles out of wallpaper than you can just with paint.”

Sparks sold wallpaper at JCPenney back in the 1980’s when virtually every department store devoted sizeable floor space to the product. Remember those giant display cases, row after row of samples, just like today’s paint aisle?

Soon, big-box home improvement stores started selling it, putting most specialty retailers out of business. Then the big guys, including JCPenney, decided it wasn’t a profitable item and stopped carrying it.

Western tastes were changing, and new architecture seemed to favor painted accent walls and faux finishes. Arizona homebuilders added texture right to the wall, making it more difficult and costly to sand it down and apply paper. The paper manufactures gave up and moved to the East Coast, where walls are flat and people traditional.

The fashion industry is largely to thank (or blame) for wallpaper’s current resurgence, says Angela Riccobono, a freelance interior decorator and clothing designer in Phoenix.

“The 80’s wave is coming back,” she says. “It’s the turn of the century. People want new, nice things. People are just looking for something new, and the styles are changing in fashion, high fashion and interior design.”
Everything old is new again. But “it definitely has a 21st-century twist on it,” she adds.

It’s no lie that wallpaper truly is different –and better –today.

Gone are the “cutesy” patterns and cold colors, Sparks says. Modern wallpaper mimics colors and textures of the earth.

“Wallpaper used to be hard and cold. Now, it is absolutely warm and stunning,” she says. “There are vinyls that look like grasscroft. It’s going more natural.”

Rich earth tones such as blue, green, brown and rust are in. So are textures and metallics, which can make paper look more like and expensive fabric, says Nancy Petrenka of Judy Fox Interiors in Old Town Scottsdale.

She’s seen wallpaper that even looks like embroidery. Her favorites include papers with mica chips and other stones, which catch the light and add another dimension to the room.

Claire Ownby, owner of Ownby Design in Scottsdale, Arizona, says she like paper with raised, embossed-looking crystals. As the options grow, her firm is suggesting wallpaper to clients more and more.

“There are so many cool options,” she says. “Definitely from a design standpoint we have started specifying it because we’re seeing new products with great textures, just amazing colors and patterns that make us want to use wallpaper.”

Flowers and stripes continue to be popular, but the dimensions are changing. Go for big and bold floral prints, or irregular stripes of all different widths and colors on a single wall. Look for pop art designs, too, like a giant fork and spoon for the kitchen or dining room, sold at Anthropologie. There are about five wallpaper specialty stores left in Arizona, all with extensive samples to browse. And the Internet has become a great resource (visit grahambrown.com); just beware that the color on your computer screen may be different than the real thing.

Where to Wallpaper
The best place to dabble with wallpaper is in the bathroom. As the smallest room in the house and typically less lived in, it gives you the freedom to go bold. Petrenka installed paper in here own bathroom, covering the walls and even the ceiling with a map of the world. She trimmed around the continents so each panel would match up perfectly. (You don’t want the United Kingdom sitting next to South America.)

Wallpaper is at home in the most traditional room of the house: the dining room. Don’t be afraid to pick a classic pattern – one that you’ll like next decade as much as you do now – and decorate the whole room. Or for a more subtle effect, wallpaper the dining room from the midway point up. Designers agree you’ll get a more classy effect with wallpaper than with paint.
“Wallpaper brings in that elegance to the home,” Riccobono says.

Try adding a border to the kitchen, too.

Wallpaper accent walls are really gaining momentum, especially in the bedroom. Adorn the wall behind your headboard to update the painted accent walls made popular by speedy home makeover shows several years ago. Gwyneth Paltrow’s bedroom wall is a soothing lavender and metallic print. (She also used a grey and white print around her entire spiral staircase.)

How to Wallpaper
Anyone who has taken down wallpaper is reluctant to do it again. But a new generation of products promises each strip will go up and come down in one piece.

Sparks recommends Paper Illusions torn paper by Village. All you have to do is tear it and dip it in water. Other brands come with a backing, so you just peel the paper off and stick it on.

There are as many theories about wallpaper installation as there are presidential candidates. Sparks vote is to do it yourself. She stresses that you must get the first panel exactly right. But after that, the job is easy.

Other designers recommend hiring professionals. Ownby says there’s just one company in town she absolutely trusts – Reeves Paperhanging, if you’re curious.

Either way, you’ll enjoy one marked advantage. Wallpaper, by nature, is perfectly symmetrical. You know exactly what you are going to get, which is something you can’t say about painted-on shapes, stripes or splatters.

“People are sick of looking at that. It’s too busy in an unorganized way, while wallpaper is symmetrical,” Phoenix decorator Riccobono says.

Maybe someday, designers will wrinkle up their noses and say, “paint?”