Where can I find funky, fascinating wallpaper for my apartment?
December 2, 2009 6:58 AM   Subscribe

Where can I find funky, fascinating wallpaper for my apartment?

I just moved into a new apartment, and I'm really excited to deck it out. I'm looking for cool, fascinating wallpaper for one accent wall. I don't mind paying a bit for it - if I have to look at it every single day, I want to love it.

My tastes tend towards the baroque, ornate, somewhat psychedelic even. I've seen stuff here and here that I really liked. This and this also are in line with my tastes, though I don't want the place to bee too much of a kitschy horrorshow. Quirky for the sake of quirky wears thin pretty quick.

I'm discovering that this is much more of a process -- a lot of web images can't really replicate the look and feel of actual samples, so I'm looking for more to choose from.

Do any of you have any suggestions for places to look?

Thanks so much ...
posted by chinese_fashion to Home & Garden (13 answers total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is arguably a bit of a non-answer, and I don't intend to derail, but... really?

Many landlords will let you paint a wall, but I've never heard of any landlord willing to let you put up wallpaper. The stuff is a huge pain in the ass to get rid of, and painting over it is a sub-optimal solution at best. If this is a condo, hey, go nuts, but if you don't own the place I'd clear your plan with your landlord before getting too invested. Otherwise you can kiss your deposit goodbye.
posted by valkyryn at 7:30 AM on December 2, 2009 [1 favorite]


Check out Walnut Wallpaper. They have some incredible, unusual designs.
posted by dayintoday at 7:32 AM on December 2, 2009


Also, if it turns out your landlord won't let you wallpaper, try using fabric instead which can be adhered with starch and cleanly removed: http://www.rentaldecorating.com/quick_fix_fabric_on_walls.htm
posted by dayintoday at 7:33 AM on December 2, 2009 [4 favorites]


I love DesignSponge and ApartmentTherapy blogs for this kind of thing. I found these on DesignSponge just now, and searching ApartmentTherapy yields several people asking the same question as you. Happy hunting!
posted by alight at 7:36 AM on December 2, 2009 [1 favorite]




Bradbury & Bradbury does mostly reproduction Victorian and Art Deco papers, but their Atomic Age and Mod collections might appeal to you.

I can personally vouch that their papers have an amazing hand to them, nice thick paper.
posted by anastasiav at 7:54 AM on December 2, 2009


TROVE

Incredible, incredible wallpaper. All handmade - the people who make it are really great, too.
posted by infinitefloatingbrains at 8:20 AM on December 2, 2009


One of my favorite design shops, Rare Device, has some interesting wallpaper. You can find it in this section: For the Walls.
posted by crenquis at 8:25 AM on December 2, 2009




And my personal favorite: vintage German wallpaper.

Z.
O.
M.
G.
posted by cmoj at 9:02 AM on December 2, 2009


Speaking as someone who had to get god-awful wallpaper off a wall once, I would strongly recommend the "fabric adhered with starch" plan. Fabric is cheaper than wallpaper, and available in tons and tons and tons of awesome prints (check http://www.equilter.com for options!) and if you decide you want a change, that's easy enough to accomplish.

Getting the wallpaper off -- and truly, I had to, it was a photographic mural of the Earthrise as seen from Tranquility Base on the Moon, and while I love that picture, it was a bit much to be in my master bedroom, plus it was spattered with what I hope to god was coffee but which might have been blood -- was so awful that my husband volunteered to clean the gutters forever if I would do the wallpaper this one time.
posted by KathrynT at 9:33 AM on December 2, 2009


And if you do put wallpaper up, please PLEASE do good surface prep on the wall beneath. One of the things that was extra horrible about KathrynT's wallpaper experience was that it was pasted to bare wallboard.

And, having seen it in its glory, I can attest to the horribleness.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:00 PM on December 2, 2009


If you want to get a better idea of what they look like, you can always set the little sample images from the websites as your computer's desktop background as a tiled image...
posted by crenquis at 4:15 PM on December 2, 2009


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