Did you happen to read Dara Flynn’s article in the Sunday Times this weekend with its emphasis on black and white as a decorating trend. With the weather being so blustery, ‘fluich’ (we’re trying to improve our Irish – a word of the day last week was fluich = wet), we even had hailstones and thunder today, black and white seems more appropriate than colourful florals this week!

Dara mentioned Jab’s new Black and White collection and it reminded me of one of my favourite photos from one of their previous collections, Palm Beach – I just love the textures and layers in this bedroom:

Jab - Palm Beach

It certainly makes me rethink black being too masculine for a bedroom!

And another striking black and white bedroom that I spotted on pinterest.

What do you think? Only for a bachelor pad or does black and white work for a feminine bedroom? I have to admit when I looked at the first picture I thought to myself that I’d love to see a splash of pink somewhere – just one like a pink orchid on the bedside table and hey presto, there’s pretty peonies there in the second photo – perfection

Happy Monday

Things are pretty hectic here at GL at the moment, so far this morning I have attempted to write a tender (don’t ask), despatched the weekend’s orders, separated the six goats into 2 batches which might sound easy but they are very attached to each other (why did I do that?, well, I don’t want Rolo to get Katie pregnant whereas it would be nice if Megan and Becky became pregnant so he is with the 2 older females and Katie is with her brothers Clay and Soot)., hoovered because our 7 year old is in a ‘let’s make it’ mood and there were trails of cut up tiny bits of paper everywhere, and answered lots of emails.

It’s going to be a busy week too, I’m really excited to be delivering a talk on Wednesday at the National Women’s Enterprise Day conference in Portlaoise.  I still remember how nervous I was when I delivered my first talk in public many years ago.  I remember practising in front of my antique teddy bears. I dotted them around the room trying to make eye contact with each of them as I practised. None of them looked bored or smirked but all smiled encouragingly!

Maybe it is the darker evenings and the open fire but I am loving the cosy country look at the moment.

Country style Bedroom

Images: Country Living

I was asked this question recently ‘How do you decide on a paint colour for the other walls when wallpapering a feature wall?’

Wallpapering feature walls is very popular and works particularly well in rooms such as bedrooms when the ‘unbroken’ wall (not broken up by windows or doors) is that which the bed is set against.  It also works well in reception rooms with a fireplace (either the whole wall, the chimney breast or the alcoves can be wallpapered), bathrooms and within rooms that are an unusual shape.

But how to decide on the paint colour? Choose your wallpaper first and then you have to decide on whether you want to wallpaper to really stand out as the feature or not.  If you do, it is best to let the paint blend into the background of the wallpaper so the paint colour will be similar to or lighter than the main background wallpaper colour.

In my own hall, you can see that the backgrounds in the Taraz wallpaper and in the fabric are of a similar tone. The carpet has varying shades so we opted for Farrow & Ball’s Old White for the other 3 walls which is lighter, partly because the hall can be quite dark.  There is a very subtle metallic stripe in the wallpaper which means that it looks much darker in the evenings and can be quite bright when the late afternoon sun is streaming in.

This bedroom from House to Home has a matching pair of curtains to the feature wall wallpaper and rather than letting the painted walls recede  into the background with white paint, they are making a bolder statement by picking out the vivid green leaf detailing in the pattern.  This gives the other walls more impact but also draws more attention to the pattern within the wallpaper and fabric.

In this living room (image also from House to Home) , the feature wall simply has a couple of strips of wallpaper in its centre and symmetry is created with the positioning of the console table, the lamps, the framed wallpapers and the centralised coffee table.  Here the silvery grey in the wallpaper pattern is used on the walls which gives the wallpaper and the yellow chaise much more impact in this room.

I hope those tips help. If you have any more queries, do add them in the comments.

I was recently asked ‘how do you work out what curtain fabric goes with your wallpaper especially when you want to wallpaper all four walls?’. I thought it was a brilliant question that I’d answer in a blog post rather than trying to tweet some answers.

We probably all can remember those wallpaper borders that co-ordinated with the wallpaper and matched the curtain fabric and the bedlinen – in fact, they might even have induced some nightmares. Some wallpaper and fabric designer companies still produce photos like that to display the new design.

A tad much methinks! Finches wallpaper and fabric by Sanderson

A striking monochrome colour scheme with floral black and white wallpaper and a slightly different design in the fabric.  While I like it, I couldn’t live with it. I like how the bedlinen is so plain and would prefer a contrasting fabric in the curtains – something that is quite plain with a raised stripe for contrast and texture.  Image from House to Home.

The image below from Designers Guild‘s Valadier indicates what I mean.

This picture by Jab shows how a monochrome scheme can be full of interest as long as different patterns (stripes against the frond wallpaper), textures and tones are used:

Also by Jab, this image shows how the matching curtain fabric and wallpaper means the two merge and in my opinion, is overwhelming:

The image below (Jab) shows that if you want to use matching fabrics and wallpapers, then use a panelling effect to break up the pattern with plain paint. Plain fabrics on seating and bedlinen will mean that the plain patterns will stand out against the patterned floral walls.

A busy wallpaper like a toile de jouy (below from House Beautiful) really needs a plain curtain fabric, (you can barely see that they have edged the leading edges of the cream curtains with a complementary colour to the wallpaper).

You can see in the picture by Lorient below that this vivid green floral wallpaper co-ordinates well with the simple leaf design, with the greens being of the same tone.

Gorgeous Charlotte fabric by Designers Guild in their first Royal Collection co-ordinates beautifully with the duck egg damask wallpaper.

Remember this tip – You can use the same colour scheme – but use a different pattern, e.g. striped fabric with floral wallpaper, plain fabrics with busy wallpaper, or a floral/leaf pattern that is much bigger or smaller in scale.

We are stockists for most of  the wallpapers displayed above so if you see something you like on the Designers Guild, Sanderson or Voyage Decoration websites, do contact us if you have a price enquiry.

I was recently asked the question ‘How do you know if a particular wallpaper will suit a room?’ and this developed into ‘I have a dormer house and would like to wallpaper my bedroom but am not sure whether to wallpaper the walls or part of the ceiling?’, so I thought I would devote a few posts to wallpapers – wallpapers for all types of rooms, different uses of rooms, feature walls, wallpapering all four walls, different heights etc.  So that is what will be happening on the blog for the next couple of weeks, intermixed with a couple of blog posts interviewing Irish designers and the occasional post on some new stock and some interior design trends. Sound okay? And if you have any questions regarding wallpaper, do ask.

For today’s post then, the focus is on wallpaper for bedroom with sloping ceiling / dormer windows.

You can see in the room above that the sloping ceiling is quite long in that there isn’t much headroom above the bed and the slope goes all the way up to the centre of the room.  Wallpapering this sloping ceiling would make the room feel claustrophobic in my opinion. You can see that the exterior wall is the only room to be wallpapered, I think this wallpaper would have been nice on the other walls too although there is quite a curve as the wall meets the sloping ceiling which would make it very difficult to get a neat edge – so there is also a practical reason here for not wallpapering the low wall.

In this bedroom featured in Country Living, the slope of the ceiling is quite short and there is a significant proportion of full ceiling height.  In theory, one could wallpaper this sloped ceiling and it would accentuate the height of the room (as the sloped ceiling would then appear as if a wall) but as the room is quite busy, there is enough going on without adding more patterned wallpaper to the scheme and the wallpapering of the feature wall in sufficient.

Here’s an example of a bedroom that has the walls and sloped ceiling wallpapered in the same wallpaper. I have to admit I would run screaming from this – way too claustrophic for me. Having said that though, this would work in a guest bedroom if you wanted to achieve a really cosy atmosphere but I would opt for a less busy pattern!

I think this room is lovely, the blue and white is really fresh and as the slopes are also wallpapered, it adds height yet cosiness to this room.

Most of these pictures are of ‘country-styled’ rooms as loft bedrooms lend themselves to that look so well but there is no reason why you can’t add a more modern wallpaper to a bedroom in a dormer house.  You just have to be cautious regarding the busyness of the pattern and the amount of furniture in the room – don’t make it all too busy as the bedroom is a room to relax in after all.

I love the saplings wallpapers by Miss Print particularly the white with gold.  A really pretty leaf design and the metallic within the design changes with different lights so it will sometimes look like a dull pewter rather than a gold. A really pretty wallpaper that won’t enclose a space.

Another pretty wallpaper is that of Promenade – in the distance it looks like a traditional country style blue and white toile pattern but up closer, you can see it is very tongue in cheek with people dressed in the styles of different eras and yet chatting happily to those from a different time.

and here’s a close-up:

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with the points I have made regarding wallpapering a room with a sloping ceiling? Any other suggestions?

Images: House to Home, Country Living