by Sarah Van Arsdale
What if you want to change the look of a room, making it more formal or more casual, brightening it up or toning it down, but you don't want to spend a fortune or have to move all the furniture out while the workmen set about painting or re-papering the walls?
To the rescue: wallpaper borders.
Hanging wallpaper, you might be aware, is a big job, and can be quite costly, whether that cost is paid in money to the professionals or in the psychiatric bills you'll incur from trying to do it yourself. Matching seams and patterns, getting it to stay where you want it, smoothing it to get rid of bubbles, all takes a great deal of time and patience. And you need to clear out the whole room ahead of time.
But a little wall paper trim - at the top of the room - can cheer up a room without requiring a second mortgage or a trip to the locked medicine cabinet.
- Tip: Wallpaper trim was originally used as a complement to or substitute for crown molding. As you may know, crown molding - either wood or plaster - will give any room a more formal look, and will bring the gaze from its usual eye-level height up toward the ceiling. If it's a room with high ceilings, crown molding will accentuate the height, and if the ceilings are somewhat lower, it will give the illusion of height right where you need it.
Crown molding works very nicely with painted walls in older buildings. Of course, it works best in rooms which were originally built with crown molding in mind.
On the other hand, wall paper trim at the top of the walls can do the same job, with less expense and less permanence, and can rescue any style of room from dullness. And, if you get tired of the pattern or color, you can change it easily.
Today, there are wallpaper trims that come in a dizzying array of styles, colors, and patterns.
In this boy's bedroom, you can see how the paper from the mid-point of the wall up is bordered by stars, creating a coherent look to the room, and livening up the walls even more. And, if you wanted to, you could easily change the border to one with a boat motif, which would change the look of the whole room.
As you can see, wall paper borders aren't limited to being put around the top of the walls; you can use them to split a wall at any level you want, creating more interest in the room. Wall paper borders are just one of those little things that mean a lot!
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