Simple, Textured Wallpapers for Connecting Spaces
This time last year, I was hurrying to finish several home projects in my home. That’s not how I usually do things; I really prefer to take my time. (I’m a slow decorator at heart.) But I wanted to include pictures of my house in my new book, so it needed to be ready for the photo shoot. In my dining room, I covered the walls in our Hampton Park mural in Blue, installed a new light fixture, and hung natural rattan chik blinds for an earthy contrast. Across the entryway in the living room, I painted the walls a rich, deep green, layered the wood floors with seagrass and vintage Swedish rugs, and pulled up the furniture to a coffee table that belonged to my parents.
I don’t think houses are ever “finished.” They evolve and change, just like the natural landscape, over time. That said, it felt good to see those rooms take shape, and I know which ones I want to focus on next. I’ve been thinking about the entryway, which feels a little bare now compared with the spaces on either side of it. I want to create a soft custom rug for the stairs, so you see something beautiful and personal the minute you walk in. I’m still looking for the perfect console table. (One that I bid on and won in an online auction didn’t work as well as I had hoped.) And now that the dust has settled, I’m looking at the white walls and imagining how I can bring in texture or color. It’s a big, open space that continues all the way up the stairs and down the hallway, so it's very impactful. I want it to have a special, warm feeling. I’m imagining covering the walls in something subtle, like our new “solid” Alder wallpaper.
The walls of our houses matter so much. They’re the backdrop of our home landscape. They set the mood. Color plays such an important role in this. It takes a variety of colors, textures, and patterns, all layered together, to make a room feel rich and diverse and cohesive. To get the balance right, the walls might need to make a statement. They might need to be quiet. Or they might need to be something in between, to connect to the surrounding colors and textures and have just the right amount of presence. The latter instance, when you need something subtle, is exactly what I created Alder and the other wallpaper in our Color Collection, Bramble, to do.
In decorating my house, I’ve really enjoyed seeing how a flat painted wall looks against wallpaper and how wallpapers printed on different grounds reflected light and color differently. That inspired me to create some simple, textured colors that enhance how we experience color at home and bridge the contrast between a flat painted room and one that’s covered in a patterned wallpaper or immersive mural. A textured, printed color can envelop a room and give it a natural, engaging feeling.
For a space like my entryway, Alder is the ideal choice to add interest and treat it with more care without making it too strong or bold, since it’s set between more heavily patterned areas of the house. I can see this type of pattern working really well in an open plan living area or a calm bedroom.
Our Bramble grasscloth is great for a more contained space. It has a really rich texture, almost like raw silk, that makes a room feel special and cozy. I also love it for a home that has lots of wood tones to bring even more of a forest feeling. I think of it like colorful bark.
This is just the beginning. I’m thinking about how to create more textural backgrounds—like the beginning of a painting, washy and textural—that will bring depth to a room. Color can be such a source of joy, and I hope these designs make surrounding yourself with it easier to do.
