One of the last projects my mom and I tackled in our Tennessee house was the hall bathroom. What was supposed to be a quick fix (taking down the wallpaper and painting) turned into a much bigger ordeal, of course! After stripping the wallpaper (the bottom layers of which were affixed directly onto very, very old sheetrock), the walls were a total mess. We ended up putting a texture under the paint to disguise the disaster, but this homeowner decided to leave the beautiful mess exposed.
When guests ask how to get a similar wall treatment, he says to put up several layers of wallpaper, wait 50 years, and then peel it off. You really just can't fake a good patina, can you?
Photos: Martha Stewart Living.
I love it ! It really is atmospheric, isn't it ?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I live in a 100 year old building, with walls that are not perfectly smooth and ceilings that are way way high up there, I think of all the work we could have skipped if we had left the walls, semi-undone :)
This is great :) Thanks !
I doubt my mess would be looked at as 'beautiful'!
ReplyDeleteI just finished stripping 50 year old wallpaper from the playroom. I cannot imagine keeping that disaster! I happily textured;) and then primed/painted. But his walls do look gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteI bet it's a lot easier to love that mess from afar than to have been there for the steps that led to it...I couldn't live with a failed project right there in front of me everday. But then I guess it's not a failure if it turns out this well!
ReplyDeleteWow. That is beautiful
ReplyDeleteI love it!! Carla
ReplyDeleteI love the way this looks in a styled photograph but I don't think it would be so great in real life.
ReplyDeleteI have walls like this right now. I stripped off 100 years of wallpaper. Looks much cooler in photographs then in real life.