Anyone who has tried to decorate has faced the three-headed monster: money, time and choice.
If you know what you want, you can’t afford it. If you can afford it, you don’t have time to shop. If you have the time, you can’t make up your mind.
For a change, I had the money, and I knew how I wanted to finish my powder room. Time was all that stood in the way.
For two years I had envisioned the powder room walls covered in rich crimson damask wallpaper. I wasn’t afraid of going bold. The powder room is a place you can gun it since it’s a room you don’t live in. Plus, I want to distract guests who duck in there, and keep their minds off looking through the bathroom drawers for antidepressants and Preparation H.
But I couldn’t find the time to shop for wallpaper – an ordeal on par with acquiring citizenship in a foreign country. You go to the wallpaper store, usually several, and slog through sample books. You drag home half a dozen. Each sample book weighs as much as a cinder block. Carrying them makes your arms stretch until you look like your hairy ancestors. Could prehistoric man have gotten long arms and a stooped back from carrying wallpaper books to his cave?
But wallpaper stores grant the privilege of toting these books home; customers have to check them out with a credit card and guarantee to return them in three days – or face a stiff prison sentence.
I panicked every time I thought of going through this process. Perhaps because I still have six long-overdue fabric samples checked out from a sofa store. (Gasp!) I expect the sample police to haul me away any day now. I imagine this scene happening on a busy sidewalk, people staring.
“Excuse me, Miss,” one officer stops me, while his partner comes from behind and readies the handcuffs. “I understand you have fabric samples you were only supposed to keep one week.”
“But I, but I … I couldn’t decide between the caramel sand or the coffee mocha, the chenille or the tweed, and, oh, please, then my husband said not to spend the money because he had to have all his vital organs removed and replaced, and. …”
So my powder room walls stayed benignly beige. Then I learned I could shop for wallpaper online. By chance, I found thibautdesign.com. (Other sites feature wallpaper, but this one was easy to navigate, and had a well-edited selection.) I browsed by collection – stripes, florals, tone-on-tones, etc. – and viewed papers up close and in rooms. I tagged my favorites and e-mailed them to my wallpaper supplier. (You can go through a designer or wallpaper store. The site offers a store locator.) The supplier then sent samples to my house in less than a week. And I never had to return them!
I easily eliminated those that were too rust, too rose, too gaudy, too bright. That left two. Then I asked the ultimate authority, my housekeeper, to choose. Finally, I ordered, and without getting a hernia or risking jail time!
Join me next week for insider tips on measuring and installing wallpaper.
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How to find just the right wallpaper
Thibaut is a New Jersey company that’s been making wallpaper since 1886. The company’s online store took off from the moment it was first offered in 2003, according to marketing director Stacy Senior. Here are her suggestions for finding the right wallpaper.
Look at trends. In the 1980s and 1990s, patterns were everywhere. Then the trend became no pattern, no color. Now we’re back to loving detail and texture, but patterns aren’t so busy. Today people are buying papers with softened metallics (not the foil of the ’70s), textures that resemble alligator skin, and tone-on-tone looks. Flocked papers are popular, as are contemporary lines with simple, organic shapes.
Choose your style. Selecting wallpaper is tougher than picking paint, because you’re picking color and pattern. Start by making a design board. Include pictures from magazines that will inspire the room, colors you’ll be using and any finishes or pictures of furniture. Once you’ve established a mood and direction, picking the right wall covering gets easier.
Get samples. If you shop online, ask your wallpaper resource to send good-sized samples of your top three to five favorites. The free samples from Thibaut are 18 inches by 14 inches. For a small fee, you can get 3-foot-square samples, which Senior recommends.
Live with them. Tape the samples on your wall for a few days. Walk them around your house and see if they feel at home with the other rooms.
Don’t know where to begin? Senior says the best rooms to paper are rooms without soft furnishings. Dining rooms, bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms are a great place to start.
