How to find wallpaper matching existing wallpaper?

May 30, 2012 10:25 AM

Help me find a specific wallpaper design to replace/repair missing sections.

Hey folks! I've got some wallpaper that looks like this. I'm trying to find the same pattern/wallpaper to patch up a couple of small sections where the wallpaper got torn.

Any ideas/resources/answers or general tips on how to go about cutting/pasting/matching up the pattern?

Many thanks!

posted by herrdoktor to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Even if you find this pattern, the color will be different due to fading from age, sunlight, etc. Instead, could you photograph the right section from elsewhere in the pattern (assume it repeats and isn't a single scene) and print at scale, preferably onto similarly textured paper?
posted by carmicha at 10:48 AM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well, it's a red toile pattern ... depending on how big the spots are though, I'd probably glue some sort of base material into the tear, smooth all the edges and then go at it all trompe-l'oeil-y style with acrylic paints to "match" (both background color and pattern). And then I might paint in a three-headed dog or godzilla vs mechagodzilla into the landscape, but that's just me. If you aren't handy with painting like that, maybe one of your friends?
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 11:55 AM on May 30, 2012

If you want this to look nice and seamless it might be worth hiring someone experienced in the fine art of wallpaper hanging to patch it up. They might also know a secret spot on the wallpaper that reveals the brand and style number that they could delicately dislodge or something.

I've never dealt with wallpaper myself, but my parents used to have a lot of it in the house and the wallpaper hanger dude they used had a whole bag of tricks (or maybe just fuckloads of patience?) for making the paper look good in uneven/difficult/torn spots.

I do like Rube's godzilla idea though.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 1:12 PM on May 30, 2012