Fun and Creative Uses of Wallpaper

Dear DKORistas, have you understood how much we love wallcoverings? This often overlooked material could be the biggest tool we use to create breathtaking design features. We have already been through technical aspects of that amazing material in our latest blog post: “Tips for Decorating with Wallpaper”. Today, we want to focus on the creative uses of wallpaper. Keep reading to find inspiration for your next wallpaper project!

#1 UNIQUE CEILINGS

 

There are many unique and fun wallcoverings’ applications, but placing it on the ceiling always makes for a strong design statement. Our design team has used it in children’s bedrooms and playrooms, as you can see in the pictures above. It is a surprising design feature by itself, but it is also simply a creative way to add color. Typically you would see colored painted walls, not the ceiling. The texture added to the space is not comparable with paint.

See below a more formal example. Our interior designers decided to use wood imitation wallcovering on this double-height ceiling. This particular wood-look wallcovering is paper-based (the content of wallpaper strips is not always paper, sometimes it is entirely artificial). Your eye will truly see it as real wood. However, if you feel it (although in this case, the ceilings are too high!) you will realize that in fact, it is not real wood, but paper!

#2 WALLPAPER AS HEADBOARD

If you want your bedroom to have a grand headboard, wallcovering can help you achieve it. In both pictures below, notice two different options to frame the bed and enlarge visually the headboard area.

The first example is the simplest. Take a bed frame with a low attached headboard. Wallpaper your entire headboard wall with a material that will relate to your bed frame or, as in our case here, relate to your bedding. The colors will talk to each other and feel like an ensemble. In this example, the entire wall feels like a headboard.

The second requires construction. Our designers framed the headboard area with drywall: leaving the center space tucked inwards. They used wallpaper in the center only, creating a floor to ceiling niche. The design team designed the niche to include the nightstands; a trick to enlarge the headboard.

Still not convinced and feeling as if you wish for something more special? Go bold and play with the wallpaper seams. Use them to create a geometric composition. It will look like a unique, custom-made montage! Enhance the focus on the headboard by adding mirrors on the side. Check out the example below to see the amazing design our team delivered to our clients for their guest bedroom.

 

#3 FRAMING WALLPAPER STRIPS

This wallcovering application is for the interior design lover that does not like to commit! Indeed, you can love a wallpaper design but also feel unsure about having it ten to twenty years on the wall. In that case, try using wallpaper in frames: as artwork.

Wallpaper comes in strips. You can create large, long frames that can be used as a poster size artwork on your walls. You probably have seen wallcovering mounted on canvases and simply hung on walls. Again, just like large poster frames. That looks great, is easy to accomplish, and quickly removable when wanted.

Although, we wish to show you something distinctive based on this concept. Our designers accomplished an exceptional design feature for our clients with framed wallpaper.

Keeping the Asian influence in the project’s concept, our designers framed strips of textured wallcovering in glass. The strips are as if suspended in the air. The frames were then meticulously positioned, leaning against the wall and overlapping each other, to create depth.

We love the end result! This is easy to switch up, unlike removing wallpaper from an entire wall.

#4 CREATING COZY NICHES

A wallpaper applications’ classic is using it in niches. Of course, a completely white niche with a beautiful accessory always works. Still, using wallpaper inside niches will take the design a step further and bring a sense of refinement.

 

Our designers adore using textured wallcovering for this application. Additionally, our lead designer tells us that planning for a light source inside the niche is ideal in order to highlight the paper’s texture.

The lead designer mentions as well that niches are the perfect opportunity to place a bolder pattern in a room. So, create a great background for your books or accessories and select an eye-catching pattern that speaks to your interior design concept!

#5 – PLAYING “MATCHY-MATCHY”

 

The term “matchy-matchy” has a negative connotation. Nonetheless, we do use it in interiors as a design technique. The best example we can give you is this lively study room we created recently for a Miami family residence.

Playing with scale was key to making the overall look interesting. Having identical patterns on two different items within one room can feel extremely boring. Whereas using the same pattern, but one large scale on the wall and the other small on the chair creates quite the opposite. That detail does the trick; making it feel well-thought – a little corky in this case due to the pattern – and “designed”!

#6 – COMBINATIONS – MIX OF DESIGNS AND PATTERNS

The last example we wish to share with you in this interior design blog post is beginning to be very trendy right now. Almost as the mix of metals has been in fashion lately, so is the mix of patterns within the world of wallcoverings.

 

This picture communicates perfectly this unique use of wallpaper. The dining room already has an eclectic feel due to the bespoke furnishings our decorators picked out. Not to mention this airy chandelier that is astonishing. But the originality of the wallpaper combination is the element of surprise in the space. There are no dividers or any trim piece defining a space for each wallcovering; they are simply laid one next to another.

As these creative uses of wallpaper show, this material is such a useful resource when it comes to creating striking design features. We sometimes forget to keep it simple, and over-complicate designs. To create wow factors, it is not always about architectural features (build-outs, niches, illuminated reveals, etc…) in a space. On the contrary, it is using interesting materials, and finding unique applications that you get the most stunning (and cost-efficient) design features!

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