SHOWCASE YOUR DESIGNER SKILLS WITH:
WALLCOVERINGS

“Lots of homeowners have definite pre-set ideas about wallcoverings, and often these ideas are negative, the lingering effects of a bad experience. Unfortunately, this reputation is fueled by realtors who say you need to strip wallpaper and neutralize a home in order to sell it,” Brown continued. “But if you look at high-end hotels and high-end resorts, you will see wallcoverings. This is partly for utilitarian reasons, but it is also because wallcoverings create a dramatic impact. It might be bold and geometric or layered and subtle, but wallpaper is art.”

ADD TO YOUR ARSENAL
“The wallcoverings that are on the market today are easier to install and remove than in the past, and ours are made with a variety of materials—grasses, leaves, cork, crystals,” Brown said. “If you’re a designer and you haven’t embraced wallcoverings already, you need to reexamine the product, embrace it, and add it to your arsenal of decorating tools.”

Brown recommends designers new to the world of wallcoverings study the catalogues of popular stores such as Pottery Barn or Anthropology, paying attention to the wallpapers featured as backdrops. Perusing lifestyle magazines will also give a designer a feel for wallpaper patterns and colors that are popular. Another option, he suggested, is to spend time online studying the finished room photography that wallcovering companies post on their websites.

SHOWCASE YOUR SKILLS
“For a lot of homeowners, it’s a leap of faith to install wallcoverings, and that’s why a designer needs to be so confident in the product,” Brown said. “It’s hard for a lot of clients to picture a finished room from a small clip in a sample book, and that’s really where the value of a good designer comes into play. A good designer has vision and experience transitioning patterns from a sample book into a real room and a good designer knows how to convey the final vision with confidence.”

Stacy Senior, marketing director at Thibaut Wallcoverings and Fabric, suggests that wallcoverings offer designers a chance to showcase their skills. “Wallcoverings are an area that allows designers to really show what they’re made of and prove their expertise,” Senior said. “Wallpaper is such a custom look that clients need the guidance of a designer. Working with wallcoverings can really enhance the client-designer experience.”

“Designers should also know that there is great money to be made when working with wallcoverings,” added Senior. “There’s no money to be made when a client chooses paint. Paint is purchased directly from the store. But wallcoverings are a nice add-on—usually, clients who are interested in wallcoverings can also afford to have it professionally installed. Any designer who does a lot of work with wallcoverings should align herself with a quality paper hanger.”

EASY UP, EASY DOWN
“Wallcoverings today go up easily and come down quickly,” said Nicole Caucino, product manager of wallcoverings at Graham & Brown. “Many homeowners, and some designers, are hesitant to use wallpaper, but they need to know that technology and design have come a long way. Today’s wallcoverings are really trend forward, and they are not as permanent as they used to be. That’s a great angle to use when selling to customers.”

“The new nonwoven papers are a great invention that have really gained momentum in the last two or three years,” Caucino said. “Nonwoven lines are made from just one piece of paper. There isn’t a backing paper that can peel away from the front design, which is what made old wallpapers sometimes difficult to remove.”

“The nonwovens are great,” agreed Malcolm Cooper, creative director at Blue Mountain Wallcoverings Inc. “The product breathes, which means it doesn’t support the growth of mold. The nonwovens really are non-threatening. Some of them come pre-pasted, or you can choose to apply the paste directly to the wall. Some of the adhesives we recommend are even edible!” he said while laughing.

CUSTOMIZED DESIGN
Beyond its newer nonwoven lines and its more traditional collections, Blue Mountain also offers customers an opportunity to customize their wallcoverings. The company can match colors from photographs or fabric swatches and even has a line of paper that can be painted to look like a faux finished wall. Designers can specify colors and even stack tones to create a paper with up to five layers in it.

The crew at Vahallan Papers also prides itself on its ability to fully customize a client’s order. In fact, the company doesn’t even stock a steady inventory. All its wallcoverings are painted by hand. Once it’s up on a wall, the effect is similar to a faux finished wall. Vahallan’s installation process is also unique. The wallcovering doesn’t arrive in rolls, but in square-cut paper tiles, making installation around corners a snap and framing windows or doors a quick task. Later on, should a client need to repair a snag or tear, a single tile can be applied as opposed to a new sheet.

“Our product really is a form of art, and our clients take pride in knowing, ‘This was made for me,’” said Cory Lyon, co-owner of Vahallan. “We are a niche product. We are out of the ordinary. We are for those clients who don’t want to keep up with the Joneses, but instead want to be the Joneses.” WF