I’ve got to say that until two years ago, I had never particularly cared for wallpaper. Probably because most of the wallpaper I’d encountered had been installed in the 1960s or 70s and never updated. I equated it with fusty, musty, old-fashioned homes gone out of style. It was paint, or nothing for me.

What turned me around on the wallpaper issue was a visit I made to The Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson in Nashville, Tennessee, where I saw the magnificent, hand-painted, scenic wallpaper Jackson had imported from France at great cost. It was drenched in color, mostly blue, and gorgeous. And it convinced me to give wallpaper a second look.

Since then, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at sites like I Love Wallpaper, trying to figure out how to fix up my walls with a splash of textured, paper color. The problem I’m having is that I can’t afford to hire French craftsmen to paint delightful garden scenes on Chinese silk. I’ve found plenty of great swatches of wallpaper, for example, I like this Eden Bird pattern in cream, green and pink, but it’s hard for me to imagine an entire room decorated in this.

I think, I’m just going to have to take the plunge and order something.

Looking for a way to update your kitchen without spending a lot or having to get your demo on? One thing you might try – though I’m always hesitant to mention the W-word, i.e., wallpaper – is the wallpaper backsplash. A wallpapered backsplash can really make a splash, and when you brush a few coats of poly over it or have glass custom cut to fit, you can even splash all you please without worrying about stains. It’s an idea that I’ve considered for my own little kitchen’s decor, but thus far there have been so many other house to-dos that actually taking the time to apply a wallpaper backsplash has been at the bottom of the list. I do, however, really love the results some people achieved by including a wallpaper backsplash in their kitchen decor.

A beautiful example of a wallpapered backsplash from Apartment Therapy

So cute, I don't even mind the wonky edge

One technique, so many possibilities

Here’s a video from HGTV explaining how to DIY a wallpaper backsplash in less than half a day and on a budget:

What do you think? Would a wallpaper backsplash be an easy fix for your kitchen decor woes or just not classy enough for you to consider?

Full disclosure: I don’t do wallpaper. After stripping a border in a single room, I vowed that I would never, ever hang wallpaper – no matter how much I loved it – because I did not want to sentence myself to someday having to strip it. So while I adore the large pattern wallpaper I’m about to show you, I can never hang any of it my house ever ever. To which I say *le sigh* but the memory of spraying the glue stripper and standing on chairs wielding the steam machine we rented from Home Depot is too fresh in my mind to change it.

Bringing the outside in with natural chic

Mmm, turquoise!

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I guess I’ve been a little obsessed with walls and wall art the latter half of this week. So I promise this will be my last post about walls and things that go on walls for at least a fortnight or so. What got me thinking about decorative plates was these decorative plates that used to adorn my grandparents’ walls – they were illustrated with extremely striking images from old Russian folk tales and they were my introduction to stories like The Snowmaiden and Ivanushka the Simpleton. These particularly decorative plates were really very beautiful – I think they were issued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and were based on paintings by noted artist Boris Zworykin. But even so, when I think decorative plates, my brain always jumps to the dorky commemorative plates that were advertised on TV when I was a kid.

In other words, I have mixed emotions about decorative plates. But after looking around a bit, I’ve found that a plate display can be pretty cool, especially when you’re using cool plates and not weird commemorative plates featuring politicians, baseball legends and dead Hollywood icons. Here are a few examples:

I'm liking the swoop

Pretty!

Fun decorative plate designs by Christopher Paul

So what do you think? Can decorative plates move past their terrible 1980’s incarnations, back to the days when people who just hang pretty plates up in lieu of art or photographs? Or have they been ruined by their association with people who can’t stop buying Franklin Mint products?

Much much better than the wall of empty frames is the art wall. Much more grown up. Much less five minutes ago. The art wall is classier, too. Here are some great examples of real-world art walls. Remember, art doesn’t have to be expensive! You can even DIY it!

All the Best by Ronda Carman™: Deconstructing the Art Wall

from James Leland Day

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(FYI: If you have any interest in winning a $155 gift certificate to any CSN stores, head over to my personal blog and enter my latest giveaway!)

…or should I call them starburst mirrors? I’ve seen the two terms used, pretty much interchangeably and with equal frequency. So I hope we can agree that both labels are correct. Sometimes what’s labeled a starburst mirror looks more like a sun, and what’s labeled a sunburst mirror looks more like a star, but I think that’s okay. I think they’re keen no matter what you call them!

Blue Room

Tobi Fairley

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The first time I saw a mirror above a sink in a kitchen my first thought was, ugh, that must get SO dirty. You can well imagine the first thought I had when I saw a mirror hanging on the wall right above the stove. But hey, I’m a grownup person and I know how to use a paper towel. (And I hope we’re all cleaning anyway.) Mirrors get dirty no matter where you hang them – especially when you have little hands in your household. So mirrors in the kitchen? I’m down with that. For example, a mirror can be a great window stand-in in a windowless kitchen, or open up a small kitchen. See how good a mirror in the kitchen can look?

William Abranowicz for House Beautiful

skidrd

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Because this is what happens when a person doesn’t know when to say when to chalkboard paint. Yes, chalkboard paint is the bee’s knees, but let’s all show a little restraint, shall we?