We’re getting closer to picking a paint and wallpaper scheme for the three main rooms. Everything else has fallen into place quite easily, but we’re still not sure about these three rooms. They are connected via pocket doors so they have to look good together, in enfilade, as it’s called, as well as separately. The sticking point is that green is the best choice for both rooms on either end, but the enfilade won’t look good if both rooms are the same color. We’ve created a chart of the different possible combinations, and are ordering additional samples of both paint and wallpaper in the colors that work. We’re planning schemes for paint only as well as wallpaper, because we intend to paint first, then wallpaper slowly over years as time and budget allow. We’ll probably slap up a quick coat of paint in the bedroom to get us through the next few months. When the weather warms up in the spring, we have more wood stripping to do, then skim coating, before we can paint or paper for real. Above, Billings Acanthus Wall wallpaper in Blue from Carter & Co. All paint samples from Farrow & Ball. That’s Arsenic in the lower right corner.

Above, a fragment of a wallpaper we found in this room with the black fireplace, the main bedroom, when we were skimcoating two years ago. It’s a watercolor print of sprays of flowers in red, pink and yellow with green leaves on a background of beige and mica stripes. Papers like this were common from about 1890 to 1910.

Above and below, a sample of Poppy Wall wallpaper in the original document colors of red-orange and green and Garfield Parlor Wall wallpaper in avocado green, cream, and copper, both from Carter & Co. Fourteen of the company’s historic wallpapers were used for the sets of the recently released “Lincoln” film.

Anyone have any tips or experiences to share about choosing paint and wallpaper? Please post stories and photos here. Also, if anyone has a renovation or home dec project they would like to see featured here, please email cate at brownstoner dot com.


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