What Goes Around Comes Around Again And Again

Posted: February 20th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, home, innovative design, shopping, trends

Do you remember when wallpaper became “out”?  I can’t put my finger on the precise moment, but I know when my husband and I bought our first apartment I was horrified by the fact that there was wallpaper in almost every room and could barely see past it.  First thing, long before we even moved in, we had to rip off a century’s worth of wallpaper — countless layers — replaster and paint.  And suddenly the apartment looked like home.  The difference was night and day.

But over the last several years, wallpaper has been staging a comeback, and there are some pretty incredible choices out there.  I am confident there are people with a flair for design who could pull off wallpapering an entire living room in some completely over the top print and have it look unbelievable.  I tend towards the more cautious.  My feeling is that small spaces offer the perfect opportunity to try outrageous things.  Don’t be a wuss.  It’s just a matter of finding the perfect wallpaper and just the right little corner to play in.  The possibilities are endless (literally, since there are even design your own wallpaper options out there at this point).

If you’re looking for over the top, Flavor Paper (even the name is great, no?) is the place to go.  I am loving the blurred photographic print wallpaper.  I can’t quite imagine how it would read when actually hung on the wall — hence the small room, you can always change it if you’re not happy as long as you haven’t broken the bank with your initial investment. 

But they have other options based on digital prints as well that could be pretty cool.

Or there’s always just plain seriously kitschy fun.

Flavor Paper by no means has a monopoly over this corner of the wallpaper market.  Hanna Nyman makes 3-dimensional wallpaper.

The collections by both Amy Butler and Kelly Hoppen for Graham and Brown are extremely beautiful and sophisticated.

If you have small children and have a room in which you’re willing to let them go crazy — say a kids’ bathroom (or if you yourself are still actually a small child looking for some fun, which is pretty much how I feel most of the time) — I love Frames wallpaper.

There’s kind of a what-will-they-come-up-with-next thing going on with wallpaper right now.  Graham & Brown even offers a paintable corduroy wallpaper.  No joke.

If you like to keep up with current trends, paper that looks like bookshelves filled with books seems to be the wallpaper of the moment.  Although since I am constantly struggling to get out from under all of the books that seem to take over our house and demand some place to live, I can’t imagine why one would deliberately simulate the appearance of yet more books.  Individualists can go to designwall and customize their own wallpaper, but I guess you could say even that is pretty trendy right now, so you can’t win either way.  You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so just roll with it — whatever it is, it’s bound to be a trend somewhere.

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