/wallpaper

An Update for Project Ugly Duckling {including some VERY good news!}

I received a very, very happy phone call last week and it has been all I could do to keep the news of it under my hat until now. As it would happen, the lovely ladies at Kravet Canada follow my blog and read last Tuesday’s post about my love affair with Fornasetti’s Nuvole wallpaper.

This may feel a bit like a genealogy for a moment, but Fornasetti wallpapers are made by Cole and Son, and Cole and Son is distributed by Kravet. It’s one big happy designer family with many different personalities and aesthetics represented in the clan.

Well, last Wednesday I received an unexpected call from Sonia at Kravet {as a side note, this woman has the most perfectly shaped eyebrows you’ve ever seen…seriously…I have confessed my eyebrow envy to her many a time}. To my utter amazement and total delight, Cole and Son has decided to sponsor the wallpaper!!! Eeeeeee!!! I’m pretty much covered in bruises from pinching myself since I got Sonia’s delightful call and cannot WAIT to get this stunning, statement-making paper installed! Oh happy day!!!

The truth is, we are just at the drywall stage, repairing the walls now that the electrical has been done, and I’m waiting for the mudder and taper to fit us into his schedule. {Mudding and taping is the ONE job Graham won’t do – he values his sanity too much. Read: mudding and taping is the messiest, most tedious, WORST job in a reno!} Once the mudding and taping are done, Graham will get the trim up and we’ll paint the trim and crown and ceiling, etc…and THEN the wallpaper can go up! So I have to take my patience pill for now and wait a couple of weeks for the gorgeousness to be revealed to you all. Things are always much slower when you do the work yourself, but gratifying too {and of course, WAY cheaper}.

Next on my to-do list is lighting, so I’ll update you with that next week as we keep plugging away on the beautification of Project Ugly Duckling. She’s still more duckling than swan right now, but I can visualize her transformation and am rather giddy at the anticipation of the reveal!

Happy Thursday!

xo
s.

By |June 27th, 2013|3 Comments

An Update on Project Ugly Duckling + Some Wallpaper Love

It’s time for an update, and I am SO EXCITED! My amazing husband has been working hard to lay this rather complicated floor for me. Let’s just say, this is an installation that even my professional tile installers would moan about, and Graham didn’t so much as winge. I am BEYOND impressed at how successfully he passed this test of patience.

He is currently working on the electrical so the best I can show you right now are these photos taken with the natural light available on a really rainy day, but I think you’ll agree, the new floor is SPECTACULAR! I am beyond in LOVE with it and still can’t believe I found these tiles for $3.50 a square foot. Steal of the century! The statement this floor makes as soon as you open the door to this hallway makes me SO happy. Stylish, sophisticated, subtle in its striation…simply STUNNING! 

With the vanity on order, I’m currently turning my attention to what to do with the walls. Given all the wallpaper that once adorned this space, it seems only fitting to consider an homage of some sort. The first option to grab my attention and make my heart skip a beat is this absolute STUNNER: Nuvole from Fornasetti made by Cole and Son.

I am almost as obsessed with clouds as I am with all things herringbone and chevron, and I simply adore the look of an antique etching accomplished with this gorgeous, hand-drawn paper. How poetic would it be to enter a bathroom and find oneself enveloped in clouds? The only catch? I might have to sell my first born just to paper the bathroom, and given that this bathroom is in fact for HIM…well…seems a titch counterproductive.
{Image via Elle Decor}

Still, Fornasetti has my head even more “stuck in the clouds” than it ever was with this amazing paper. Much to consider…

For the sake of having a less expensive option to weigh on the scales of design, I searched out and found this rather whimsical and charming paper from UK-based illustrator Abigail Edwards.

I love the simplicity and playfulness of Abigail’s hand-drawn illustration, and I am warmed by the idea of feeling adrift on a sea of dreams in this little bathroom – a sweet escape in which the imagination could journey to many a land. Our son is in fact a sailor, so there is something that feels rather apropos about this one.

The third option, of course, would be no wallpaper at all, and my imagination is playing with the options for what I could do to create interest on the walls, complimenting the stunning floors while not competing with their texture and style statement.

What do you think? Do you have a favourite wallpaper between the two? And could we all just take a moment to celebrate – nay APPLAUD with a standing ovation – my superstar husband for the DIY floor installation of the year?  Still so impressed with his mad skills. I am a very lucky girl to have married the son of a builder man – he’s a software sales superstar by day and a DIY champion by night. Colour me grateful!

xo
s.

By |June 18th, 2013|3 Comments

Design Find | Élitis Wallpapers | The Pleats Collection

You may remember me saying yesterday that I have an insatiable appetite for art for many reasons, but it is in part because of the endless expression of uniqueness filtered through each individual artist. The journey of discovery is endless – visually, creatively and within oneself.

While I by no means place manufactured product into the same category as art, there are certain products that are something of an artform, with a history behind them that dates back through centuries of craftsmanship. Wallpaper is one such product, and I think the endless variation and innovation seen in this niche of the design industry is fascinating. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, someone comes up with an outrageous, jewel-encrusted paper or a new hand-painted technique that is jaw-dropping. From diversity of aesthetic, to diversity of process, to diversity of application, wallpaper will always interest me.

I stumbled upon a wallpaper recently that once again blew apart my paradigms of what is possible. I honestly can’t remember where I first saw the room adorned with the eye-catchingly simple pleated wallpaper, but the texture drew me in and had me searching the web for the source immediately. And with that, today’s Design Find! Élitis Wallpaper, The Pleats Collection.

A cross between a quilted wall and an origami art installation, the delicate folds in the wallpaper {above} provide a detailed and sophisticated relief, layering texture-upon-texture and interest-upon-interest.

The above paper from the collection is both delicate and modern, old world and edgy. I absolutely love it in the indigo for its boldly feminine statement.

How amazing are those little vertical folds? I would forever be running my hand across the wall, no doubt. A modern-day, edgy twist on traditional Rococo-esque wall panelling leads to dramatic yet whimsical results with this paper {above} bringing the feeling of a French pied-à-terre right into your own home. Délicieux.

What wallpapers have caught your fancy of late, and what do you think of this collection from France’s Élitis? Wishing you an inspired Tuesday with at least one discovery that breaks apart your paradigms of what is possible.

xo
s.

By |May 7th, 2013|0 Comments