Frieze! It's the Design Police!

Every wallpaper manufacturer has traditional patterns in its line. But if you want a truly authentic look for your project, you're better off with some of the smaller, specialized wallpaper suppliers. A designer familiar with the historical variations in wallpaper and usage is also essential.

by Dan Cooper & David E. Berman, Trustworth Historical Design

So you're a General Contractor charged with the restoration or replication of a period interior. You've matched the new woodwork to the faded mahogany stain of the old mantel that the clients dragged home from the salvage yard. The heart-pine flooring glows just like that advertisement with the naked lady sitting on it. The five-piece plaster ceiling medallion appears to be maintaining its hold on the blue-board. And now, we come to the wall treatment. What's proper for which period? What kind of preparation is necessary? Who do you get to do it?

Wallpaper continues to be the poor relation in most building projects whether they be restoration or new construction. Vast piles of money are consumed by structural concerns, plumbing, electricity, millwork, etc. When the plasterers and painters have cleared out, the resulting interior is often meticulously executed, clean, and brightly painted . . . white. Now all you have to do is make it look historically appropriate.

The trick to achieving this look is to steer clear of local paint and wallpaper stores -- and in truth, most decorator-supply sources, known in the major cities invariably as The Design Building. Instead, make a beeline towards the much smaller manufacturers who specialize in reproducing exact or "document" wallpapers in the full scale (not miniaturized for "modern" tastes and interiors) with period-appropriate colorings.

When trying to choose what to use for a job, most of these small companies are very happy to take the time to discuss what is appropriate for your situation. Some of these companies offer design services to help you create a historically accurate reproduction of a period interior. Among them are: Bradbury & Bradbury (707-746-1900 and Carter & Company (707-554-2682) of California, Carol Mead (860-963-1927) of Connecticut, J.R. Burrows & Co. (800-347-1795) and Waterhouse Wallhangings (617-423-7688) of Massachusetts, and Victorian Collectibles (414-352-6971) of Wisconsin.

Working With Hand-Screened Papers A note for contractors who are not familiar with small-run hand-screened wallpapers: Almost all of these papers are sold untrimmed and are NOT pre-pasted. Trimming a handprint consists of laying a straightedge along the pre-printed marks and cutting off the excess paper. If you subcontract the paperhanging, make sure to mention to your prospective paperhanger that the paper must be trimmed. If you receive a blank look, find another contractor, because this person may compromise the quality and/or the cost-effectiveness of your job. Lining papers are highly recommended for this level of wallpapering; they are an excellent precaution for papering over old plaster or any old structure where settling may be an issue. Paperhangers often have their preferences for pastes, but clay-based arguably works best with handprints because of its low moisture level and slow setting time.

This 1890 interior by Trustworth Historical Design employs an English block-print paper for the fill, Anaglypta as a dado, green velvet for a frieze, and a wooden tongue-and-groove ceiling.

Evolution Of Art Wallpaper
Early block-printed wallpaper appears sometime in the 16th century as rather bold damasklike patterns, and progresses through the 17th and 18th centuries as traceried foliage, garden, and more-elaborate pictorial patterns. Block printing involves the carving of a wood print block (usually one for each color) and pressing it along the length of the paper. This technique was obviously time-consuming and very labor intensive, and consequently appeared only in the homes of the wealthy. By the late-19th century mechanized processes had made the cost of paper so cheap that anyone could have the most banal, hybridized, double-rose-about-to-blast-its-petals pattern that your heart could ask for. Today, many art papers are hand-screened -- a process of squeegeeing ink through a prepared membrane onto the paper, with one screen for each color. Hand-blocked papers still may be found, but at a premium price. While the coated-vinyl look is not appropriate for historical accuracy, specialized companies can add a protective acrylic coating to wallpapers without changing their appearance.

With the coming of William Morris in the late-19th century, the progress of mainstream design diverged into what has evolved into the specialized art-wallpaper business (as opposed to what is more commonly available to the mainstream homeowner/commercial application). In the true heyday of art wallpapers -- the late-19th and early-20th centuries -- papers were created using block, stencil, airbrush, and many other obscure techniques to achieve truly spectacular effects. Shand-Kydd, an English company known for its extremely high-end production techniques, used stencil to scrub away ground color rather than deposit it and thereby achieved a very soft, almost -- looking through a haze at twilight -- effect in some of their friezes. Again, many of the smaller wallpaper houses are beginning to reintroduce these effects using more modern methods. Historically, most wallcovering treatments were of a single-patterned paper, covering the entire wall from floor to ceiling. Notable exceptions are the scenic French block-print papers that are continuous murals, circumscribing an entire room.

"Seaweed" was designed by Henry Dearle and was one of Morris & Co.'s patterns, printed by Jeffrey & Co. in the 19th century. Carol Mead now produces this fill paper in the document colors.

Borders became popular starting in the 18th century as a way to augment a painted wall or to embellish the main wallpaper. These horizontal bands of wallpaper can range from 4 to 30 inches in height. Friezes, the most common type of border, run just below the ceiling molding on the wall, but in some early-19th-century applications, narrow borders run just above the base-boards and around door and window casings. Narrow borders may also be hung at waist height to create the impression of a chair rail. The paperhanger should bear in mind that the pattern must start somewhere.

"Isis" is a frieze by C.F.A. Voysey dating to 1895. Carol Mead supplies this paper in document colors.

A large or scenic frieze pattern will have a noticeable break in the repeat (where the end meets the start). This break must be accounted for in determining the starting point. Corners, especially in the recessed depths of a chimney-breast, are often ideal choices.

Papering the Ceiling
Occasionally, a client may request that you paper their ceiling; this is not unusual in a historical context. Wallpapered ceilings became popular in the mid- to late-19th century with the advent of gas lighting. Before then, kerosene and other oil-type lamps would quickly deposit a layer of soot on a ceiling, even with the little smoke-bells that were designed to capture the offending combustion by-product. Thus, ceilings were often painted white over and over again as needed; it was pointless to spend money on a ceiling treatment that was going to look filthy in a short period of time. Gaslight was and is quite clean burning; people discovered that they could stencil and/or paint their ceilings without fear of a soot buildup.

This trend continued until just after the turn of the century, when the Colonial Revival was in full sway, and painted ceilings became the norm again, most likely in deference to the Colonial ceiling treatments of yore. Ceilings of the Arts & Crafts movement, so popular today, could be either painted or papered.

When papering a ceiling, bear in mind that they tend to consume a deceptively large amount of paper, with long strips and a fair amount of wastage. The under-surface preparation should be very thorough -- as meticulous as though a semi-gloss paint were to be used. The sheen in some papers will exaggerate any prep flaws, just as badly or worse than a wall.

Dado, Fill, and Frieze
Around the time that papered ceilings became popular in the late-19th century, a common wall treatment known as the tripartite treatment was widely embraced. Here, the wall was broken up into three horizontal sections; a dado, a frieze, and a fill. A dado is the area below a chair or plate rail; we've discussed the frieze previously; and the fill is the area between the two. The dado was usually the darkest in color of the three. It could be a smooth wallpaper, but was often an embossed paper or Lincrusta, sometimes painted in simulation of leather or wood (the latter to replicate paneling). The fill could be paper or paint. The three sections could be coordinated (as per the roomset papers of Bradbury and Bradbury), but many treatments were cut and pasted with a palette that would be considered terribly clashing by today's standards.

"Persis" is a c.1880 wallpaper, now offered by J.R. Burrows & Co.

Wallpaper transforms the character of an interior for less money, white paint excluded, than any other decoration choice you might make. Whether it is a lush English garden, a book-lined study, or an Asian fantasy, anything from the simplest geometric pattern to stylized roses to photo-realistic images is available to add magic, warmth, and interest to any historic room. No matter how much you've expended on your project, the first thing people will notice upon entering a room is the wall treatment. Do not compromise your efforts by scrimping at this final, critical stage. The key to an aesthetically successful period scheme is finding a wall treatment appropriate in scale, pattern, and color. Or, more simply put, to quote the Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi, "More is more, less is a bore. "

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