Not your grandma's wallpaper

Modern twists on traditional prints, such
as Osborne & Little's "Clarendon" wallpaper
are a great way to liven up a room.
Photo: Osborne & Little
 

Ah, wallpaper. The mere mention of is has been known make someone cringe. But cringe no longer. Wallpaper has come a long way since the tiny florals of grandma’s house, and the silver flocked mess that seemingly covered every surface of your mom's place.

Just as we’ve broken boundaries in technology and science, so have we done in interior design. Ok, so the modern wallpaper designs can’t exactly be compared to the invention of the Internet, but we’ve come leaps and bounds from the wallpaper we grew up with. Wallpaper these days is more than acceptable. It’s cool.  This stuff is modern and hip and fun. From bold stripes to neutral geometrics, fun twists-on-traditional patterns such as florals, paisleys, damasks and cameos, and flocked (yes, flocked) prints, the options are endless.

Osborne & Little's "Du Barry" print
Photo: Osborne & Little

Keep in mind, there are rules to wallpaper that are important. Wallpaper can’t be changed out as easily as a paint color or a piece of art, so keep the following guidelines in mind:
Don’t go too trendy. This will be up for awhile, so pick a pattern and colorway that you can live with for years.
Don’t go overboard. Just because you’ve decided to paper your powder room does not mean you also need to paper your entire dining room as well. Less is more.
Do have fun. Hang stripes horizontally, or think of unexpected places to hang your wallcovering. The bed wall in the guest bedroom, the ceiling of your dining room (consider your ceiling height and don’t go too dark – you want to avoid creating a short, cave-like feeling), your staircase (this works best with staircases open to one side – again, avoid the cave), etc.
Do find the right accent paint. Adding wallpaper to one wall and leaving the rest of your walls white can look unfinished. Pull a color from your wallpaper - really look in the patterns for the full color range that you can select from. If you have a charcoal colored wallpaper, that doesn’t mean your walls as need to be dark as the field. Lighten them up, or pull a color from the pattern instead.

Embossed wallpaper
Photo: Graham & Brown

If you’re still on the fence, look into anaglypta wallpapers. Anaglypta is an embossed wallpaper typically printed on stark white, paintable paper, with designs ranging from simple geometrics to patterns hearkening back to ceiling tiles you’d find in a turn-of-the-century building (well, last century). This is a safe way to give your room a new look without making huge changes.

You can find wallpapers at most larger hardware stores, such as Lowe’s, or you can call your local designer to help you select from options available at the Seattle Design Center and surrounding to-the-trade showrooms (personal faves: Osborne and Little, which you can find at the Joan Lockwood Collection, Schumacher, also at SDC, or Mya Romanoff, found at Jane Piper Reed on S. Fidalgo St.)