I just read the wallpaper post in the Say it Here Thread and nearly spit out my tea. ; )
I asked my H for Christmas for wallpaper for our powder room. I’m picking out whatever paper I want and it will be professionally installed.
Back story - 30+ years ago I vowed never to put wall paper in a house because we were living with someone else’s paper that was totally not our taste. But it was really well installed, good quality, and impossible to get off. Just really really ugly. And different paper in every single room.
Now I’m seeing all the awesome things our neighbors are doing (and on HGTV) that I’ve been mulling it over for the last three years and really want to do the powder room which I feel is a low commitment.
We have a 120+ year old house and I absolutely love the William Morris inspired papers so that’s what we will be doing. Still haven’t picked out an actual pattern yet but I have a few ideas.
The big question is how much wallpaper to actually hang. Most of the photos that I’m seeing are wallpaper above the chair rail and then leaving below the chair rail painted. That would make for a very easy install as no one would need to work around the toilet and the vanity.
My hesitation is that our chair rail is quite high and we have a slanted ceiling over the toilet that rounds into the flat part of the ceiling. I’ve seen the wallpapered carried crossed the ceiling but I think that little room would feel too claustrophobic. So, I’m leaving towards wallpapering the whole room with the exception of the ceiling.
I’m likely going to pay to have a design consult with the designer in our wallpaper store so I don’t mess it up but I’m open to hearing anyone’s thoughts!
The power room is so tiny that it’s really hard to get a good picture but here’s the best I can do: (The floors are a dark hardwood).
Love the angles in your bathroom, @momofboiler1. If it were mine, I would find a wallpaper I love (and I love wallpaper) to install above the rail and then vertically shiplap/beadboard/board-and-batten below the rail, painting the panelling a light shade of one of the colors in the wallpaper. (I’m not averse to doing all that work myself.)
If you want to simply match paint and wallpaper, I’d paper below, paint above as just wallpaper above might look too top-heavy, but it depends on the wallpaper pattern.
Or, you could go for just an accent wall, papering that back wall with the light top-to-bottom.
So many choices. This is where ChatGPT is your friend. Whittle your wallpaper choices down to two or three, photograph samples, and then feed the samples and the picture above to Chat and ask it to paper/paint the room in any combination you like.
Please share pics with the final result. (And have fun!)
OK, I love both. See how the top sample pairs well with the white panelling below? That’s the look I’d go for. I love an all-white bottom, but it might make your porcelain disappear which is why I suggested pulling out a color from the wallpaper to paint below, but all white below would look crisp and clean. I’d just add towels in a recessive color to offset all that white.
I love the look of the paneling and have that throughout my entry, living and dining room. I’m not sure though that adding paneling to the powder room is in my budget. We may be able to do some “faux” slats though to mimic the look.
This is what is in the rest of our paneling looks like:
Then that’s actually what I would suggest, board-and-batten as in your pic above. It’s a perfect choice because it carries a theme from the rest of your house and is inexpensive to do. I shared an example elsewhere of what DH did to create a board-and-batten headboard in one of our cabin bedrooms and how he finished the bedroom walls in our casita the same way:
One of my neighbors did their powder room in a similar wallpaper and painted the paneling a dark green. It’s gorgeous! I just don’t know if that would be too dark for our tiny little powder room but I see all these dark and wonderful moody spaces on HGTV. Just not sure how that would look IRL.
I’m not afraid of color but, these days, I prefer the crisp effect of a white offset. However, a rich dark color can look luxurious. I’ve used dark colors in many waterclosets:
Just played around with AI imaging for the first time. The actual paper I want is copyrighted but I definitely like the look of above the chair rail, not on the slanted wall, and a lighter color below.
So helpful!
You guys rock!
I will send pictures when it’s done in the new year!
I’m not talking about removable wallpaper that is popular now as well, but is it true that today’s “permanent” wallpaper is still easier to remove than decades ago???
We have no wallpaper, but I do like it. I have one small area where I’ve thought about having it done.
Remember when we used to compromise and use wallpaper border in rooms? I did SO many of those.
Here’s my funny wallpaper story.
At a previous house in 1998. My youngest was a toddler just getting good at walking around the house. We had hired someone to come and wallpaper a very small bathroom off the kitchen. The wallpaper lady had just left and I was cooking dinner. Toddler was toddling around the kitchen. I turned my back to the stove to attend to food and toddler toddled into that 1/2 bath. When I realized she was not underfoot I looked in the bathroom. There she was peeling that fresh wallpaper off the wall!!! LOL, I was so upset but also not really sure how she figured out to do it - I guess it was something new and she liked the old way better!
Luckily we had enough leftover for the hanger to come back and remedy.
I’m the poster in the Say it Here - yes, I will likely be adding wallpaper in the not too distant future, I just hate things I can’t do. I CAN paint, but I can’t wallpaper and I know I’ll want to change what I put up way sooner than I should. I do like you powder room, and your paint looks like my color. I hope you come back and post some pics when finished.
I’m not a wallpaper person but what AI did here is really good.
To the OP. The “chair rail” looks like it is not a typical chair back height, it looks more like crown molding height. It doesn’t provide enough space between the rail and the ceiling, and there is too much space between the floor and the rail so that the room looks unbalanced. I wonder if you could accent the window wall with that wallpaper and leave the rest of the walls painted.
Yes, I was actually looking at that because I had changed my interior style to a more contemporary (sort of) sleek lines and simple designs. I found some peel and stick wallpaper that I thought would look good in the downstairs bath but I likely couldn’t put it up straight either. I have a handy man who is redoing my small baths so I’ll check with him.
