To wallpaper or to paint, that is the question?

by Leyla [Thisdayilove] - 17:00

When I told my husband I wanted to wallpaper all the walls in the front room he was not too keen on the idea. He was worried the room would look too dated and too dark. His other concern was finding a paper that was good quality so that it covered the rough walls underneath. The previous owners had left the walls in our house in a real mess, and to paint them would have involved finding someone to plaster them.

As it happened the chimney became damaged in the high winds recently causing rain water to leak down the chimney and damage all the ceilings underneath, the whole ceiling needed plastering and the chimney repairing. After finding a local tradesman on myjobquote.co.uk we had the repair work carried out and could begin decorating.

I chose a wallpaper from Graham and Brown which had a subtle shimmer pattern to it. The pattern keeps in theme with the rest of the house, but my husband was still unsure how it would look having all the walls, except around the fireplace, wallpapered. The Wallpaper is such that the pattern appears in the light, but when the room is in shade the paper appears plain, as if the walls have been painted. This is fantastic as we have given the room a new lease of life and by choosing a subtle pattern create a new feel to the room dependant on the time of day. To compliment the wallpaper we painted the fireplace in Dimity from Farrow and Ball. Whilst this is the same colour as the walls in the nursery the colour of the paint looks much more silver, perhaps this is due to the silver in the paper reflecting.

The wallpaper choice also meant that thanks to the pattern it can be used for a feature wall. To do this we painted the walls in silver feather from Johnstones paint, the almost white colour of the paint helps to bring out the pattern on the paper more than the same paper in the front room. This then creates more of a feature of the wallpaper in our bedroom.

The use of wallpaper in a room can give it a different meaning dependant on what it is teamed up with. Whilst the paper is the same in both our bedroom and the front room, the feel is very different. Our bedroom is much more relaxing and whilst the front room also feels relaxing it has a warming and calming property to it. I simply love how you can create a different feel to a room using the same materials but in a different way.

This post has been something I have wanted to write for a while. I have included some links I think maybe of use.