Feature Wallpaper

Creating an identity in a room can be difficult since so much of what we see in the shops is coloured uniformly and often lacking in distinctive features.

One way to overcome this is to make a feature of part of the room and use that to stamp your identity. It helps, too, if that feature is one that can, without too much trouble, be easily changed. Wallpaper provides an ideal solution since it can be as dramatic as you want now and, if you wish later, it can be simply changed.

This pattern is a bold representation of the sort of patterns that existed mid-century in the UK and is shown on the same apartment wall I used recently. The adjoining wall is painted in a complement colour and, of course, to make the room more homely, whatever accent colours you wish can be easily added with soft furnishings and other small items.

As ever, you can also see larger versions of all these images and more on our Flickr page which is here.

Midcentury Inspired Feature Wallpaper

What many modern rooms lack, I think, is something to create a feature, to make a statement or to assert the owner’s identity.

This is important since it makes the room much more personal and helps prevent it from becoming too commonplace over a period of time. One interesting and fun way of doing this is to use a feature wallpaper on one wall which, as it were, sets the scene and creates an atmosphere that binds the room together.

The modern apartment living room shown above is a simple room which exists in various forms all over the world. What I have done is to create a feature for the main wall using a midcentury inspired wallcovering at a fairly large scale. The effect catches the eye and sets a tone for the space which turns it from being another ordinary apartment into something much more memorable and makes the building fun to live in.

By way of interest, I have shown the accompanying swatch in a different colour which could, of course, be used in place of the green.

As ever, you can also see larger versions of all these images and more on our Flickr page which is here.

Midcentury Curtain Charm

Midcentury patterns added grace and charm to room decoration but they also added another essential ingredient: colour.

This pattern is only produced in one colour since other colour combination, although pleasant and intuitive to look at, really did not seem to capture the essence of midcentury living the way that this design seems to do. As a curtain fabric it graces the confines of the room and creates a sort of warm, opulent midcentury atmosphere which is hard to get in any other way.

As well as this. to me at least, it seems to make the room look inviting but perhaps in a less obvious way which I find appealing.

As ever, you can also see larger versions of all these images and more on our Flickr page which is here.

Midcentury Up To Date

The 1950s in the UK saw a host of new patterns of a type that had not really existed pre-war and which seemed to disappear as the 1960s progressed.

The pattern would seem to be experiments with form and shape and, if the evidence of images of what people think the 1950s was like is to be believed, they are both liked and are extremely popular today.

However, having said that, it seems, they have yet to be used to any great extent in modern decorating and so I have used the pattern at a fairly large scale on one wall in a modern apartment. The result is an extremely pleasant room which is not, in any way, overawed by the pattern and, if anything, it has made a room look more appealing.

Hindsight is a marvellous thing and, using it, I wonder whether the wall may have looked a little better and perhaps a little more cosy if the pattern had been at a slightly smaller scale which befits modern decorating ideas. But the way it is shown is what I intended and, for the moment at least, I will stick with that.

As ever, you can also see larger versions of all these images and more on our Flickr page which is here.

Splash Red Pattern

Various highly inventive, ingenious and evocative mid-century art movements inspired a whole wealth of surface patterns that rippled quickly through the middle decades of the 20th century.

Then, from these modernistic art movements, the basis for the patterns that we see today began to emerge as they replaced the rather traditional and old-fashioned post war ideas.

This pattern is rooted in that tradition both in its simplicity and it powerful colouring. It evokes a sense of movement and hurry, of newness and of new beginnings which was just the sort of feeling that pervaded mid-century UK.

As ever, you can also see larger versions of all these images and more on our Flickr page which is here.

No-Time Pattern

Curtains can be dull, uninspiring, wall-like, rafts of colour designed just to echo and enhance the colour scheme and look of the room.

Alternatively, they can be decorative and enlivening, beautifying the space in which they sit and maybe intended to make a bold and individual statement. This pattern, called ‘No-time’, reflects mid-century ideas and values as well as keeping true to 1950s and 60s ideas of colour and form. If it were made into curtaining then it would look like the illustration above, a dab of brightness and individuality to complement a room.

Above you can see how the design looks as curtain material and there is also a swatch that uses two other colour variations to give an idea of the design as fabric. As ever, you can also see larger versions of all these images and more on our Flickr page which is here.

Midcentury Style Quick Repeat

The trend midcentury in the UK was for large scale patterns using a quite large motifs, many of which were circular in nature.

However, at Midcentury Styles we like to be just a little different with our treatment of some patterns and so we often, just for fun, change the scale. This particular pattern was intended as a wallpaper design and would have been at quite a large scale. However, looking back at the work that we have done recently it seems that we have an inordinate amount of large-scale wallpapers and so some thought went into producing something slightly different.

The end result is this pattern which is shown as it would look as fabric for soft furnishing as well as a general-purpose fabric pattern which could be used for anything from fashion onwards.

A representation of the pattern as fabric is shown above along with a swatch but on our Flickr page you can find the fabric used on furniture as well as a change of colour.

As ever, you can also see larger versions of this and our other work on our Flickr page which is here.