How long do you think it'll be before you take down the wallpaper? If you know it will come down sooner rather than later (around a year), I think it would be better to pick something that goes...
How long do you think it'll be before you take down the wallpaper? If you know it will come down sooner rather than later (around a year), I think it would be better to pick something that goes with the furniture and wall color you already have. This'll also possibly prevent another future Walmart return
https://envs.sh/bE0.MP.jpg Hey everyone, Wife and I bought a new house and it came with this 3d wallpaper. We don't like the wallpaper but we are so busy and broke right now that it's staying for...
Wife and I bought a new house and it came with this 3d wallpaper. We don't like the wallpaper but we are so busy and broke right now that it's staying for at least a while.
The floors are a bit rough and we have a baby who is walking and crawling.
Furniture is what it is. A lot of it was hand-me-downs or stuff we got cheap when we were finishing our degrees years ago. Gonna be a while before we replace it because it's all functional and in good condition. Whether we like the look of it or not, it's just smarter to save the money right now.
We are looking for a large area rug and some blackout curtains, but we're having a hell of a time matching anything with this insane wallpaper. I cannot make any more rug returns to target. It's killing me. We've taken back probably 8 now.
Perhaps a couple paintings or art pieces for the plan white wall that's behind (not shown) this photo as well?
I had 12 different varieties of wallpaper in a past house. It had nowhere near 12 rooms, so you can imagine the insanity. After a maddening attempt to remove it (over 20 years old, and in some...
I had 12 different varieties of wallpaper in a past house. It had nowhere near 12 rooms, so you can imagine the insanity.
After a maddening attempt to remove it (over 20 years old, and in some areas there was another layer of wallpaper underneath), I realized that with a light sanding it could just be painted over. I also had texture added in one area, but that's definitely optional.
If you're willing to spend 4 hours (including the trip to the hardware store) and ~$50 in materials, it's doable. You can either make it match the current color or make it an accent wall.
I know you mentioned time and money limitations, but you might be spending that already trying to get coordinating rugs, accent pillows, etc.
I feel your pain. Embrace the madness. Especially with that textured ceiling, you're not gonna get away with boring Millennial Grey. Rather than trying to get things to match, get yourselves some...
I feel your pain.
Embrace the madness. Especially with that textured ceiling, you're not gonna get away with boring Millennial Grey. Rather than trying to get things to match, get yourselves some loud rainbow vomit (hides stains well). Pardon the realtor fish-eye, there's my 2020 home. It was a huge living room, those are both full-sized la-z-boy sofas with some pet-savers. This was the "make due with what we have" living room, you can see through to some of the choices we made in the dining room on the other side in the picture.
Get yourselves a different, interesting wall color on the painted wall. Literally anything other than what's there. I know it seems like impossible hell with a baby, but for like $80 and an afternoon + a day of venting you will hate that space 80% less. We never got around to it in this home for similar reasons to you, and regret it. I personally love a dark green or a light blue. We had one space that had a deep forest green which I think would complement your chaos wall and the wood floor.
Plants will certainly help mitigate some of the worst of that wall. The bigger the better.
Grab furniture off the curb as you see it, just make sure to check for bugs and mold. I'd personally go for a brighter natural wood like pine, or maybe a maple. Stay away from black/dark brown furniture.
Get blackout blinds for against the windows, I like Ikea's roll-down. But that frees your curtains to be whatever style you want. I'd suggest something like this.
Wow, you did such a good job tying individual elements together with that distinct palette to build a cohesive look, especially considering it's make-do decorating. One of the limitations I feel I...
Wow, you did such a good job tying individual elements together with that distinct palette to build a cohesive look, especially considering it's make-do decorating.
One of the limitations I feel I have when it comes to decorating is I tend to gravitate toward neutrals because they feel like a safer bet to match with other items as I buy/find/adopt furnature over time. But then I just have a room full of neutrals (a little hyperbolic, some of my 'find/adopt' items have brought in colour).
Stop trying to match the wallpaper. Match your furniture instead. A simple gray rug would work well, or you can go with one with texture if you want to try and be a bit more thematic with the...
We are looking for a large area rug and some blackout curtains, but we're having a hell of a time matching anything with this insane wallpaper.
Stop trying to match the wallpaper. Match your furniture instead. A simple gray rug would work well, or you can go with one with texture if you want to try and be a bit more thematic with the wallpaper. Since the gray is a bit drab and you have a nice warm color in your floor and the organizer below the TV, you could also lean into some mixture between something warm and gray.
Speaking as a fellow owner of a late mid-20th Century house with low ceilings, my advice is to think long-term about what will ultimately enhance your psychological comfort with the space. From...
Speaking as a fellow owner of a late mid-20th Century house with low ceilings, my advice is to think long-term about what will ultimately enhance your psychological comfort with the space.
From what I can see in the photo, you've got minimal natural light available. For where we are, mitigating long periods of winter darkness was a must. But lamps add clutter, and as you can see with the floor lamp, uplighting emphasizes the closeness of the ceiling.
We went with uniformly distributed recessed LED lighting in the ceiling, about one unit per 2 m2, and a couple of wall sconces. Dimmer switches permit the exact light level needed by season. This was part of a major renovation project that included sanding down a popcorn ceiling treatment and semigloss bright white ceiling paint. The ugly thing about textured ceilings is that they seem to accumulate a non-removable film of grime that's just depressing.
The illusion of sourceless bright lighting helps the room feel more spacious and comfortable. You can add small table lamps or task lighting if desired, but again, I'd keep the light pointed downward instead of highlighting the oppressive ceiling.
The biggest problem with the dizzying wallpaper is that its horizontal lines emphasize and visually compress the height of the room. When you remove it, consider some of the options illustrated here (and many other online examples of low-ceilinged room remediations). Notice that the bright vertically striped wallpaper doesn't go the full height from floor to ceiling? Leaving some whitespace around the upper and lower edges also contributes to the feeling of openness.
We had the advantage of dark flooring. That tends to de-enphasize the height of the room, and so a visually arresting rug could definitely help in your case. The trick is not to oversize or undersize it. Leave plenty of space around the edges of the room, but enough area to create an island effect for furniture.
The existing couch and chairs are oversized for the room, but mighty comfortable looking... As much as modern lower-height furniture with open legs would mitigate the impact of the low ceiling, this is a definite trade-off for comfort. Lighter or brighter furniture covers, pillows, and throws can break up the visual bulkiness of the sofa.
Move the curtain rods for windows to near ceiling level, and hang the curtains to floor length. Again, this lifts the visual perception of room height.
If you can, either flush-mount the TV screen or place it on a lower-height TV stand, oriented so it's not leaning into the room. For my admittedly fussy taste, it contributes a sense of crowding and precariousness, though that might be the camera angle.
As others have mentioned, houseplants and bookshelves might help, but those can be problematic with active kids and pets. It's a matter of taste, but I'd lean minimalist and keep the walls light colored with durable paint, adding pops of color at different heights around the room, and keeping plenty of open space around each object.
This comment was IMMENSELY helpful in terms of our long term plans to make major changes to the room. After reading some other comments, I think we are going to take down the wallpaper sooner...
This comment was IMMENSELY helpful in terms of our long term plans to make major changes to the room. After reading some other comments, I think we are going to take down the wallpaper sooner rather than later, but some of what you mentioned will probably be medium to longer-term plans.
Since you seem to have a pretty good handle on interior design and decorating, do you have any advice for rugs and or curtains?
I took about 30 seconds yesterday to do a sloppy hack job Photoshop of a couple ideas I had. I was thinking burnt orange in both the rug and curtains. Maybe some orange and grey wall art to bring it together.
Here is one of my hackjob photoshops to get an idea. The rug will be much bigger in actuality. It'll be 9x12 and will go under the front legs of all the furniture. In addition, the wall will obviously look better when actually painted and will have some wall art to make it look less empty. I'm more curious on your thoughts with my choice of color and style.
Oh, and the blinds will be coming down. We have white/cream shears we'll be putting up. As you can see, we actually do get quite a bit of natural light from the very wide windows (bay windows, I think they're called?) off to the right. They weren't shown in my first photo.
I'm glad you found it helpful! I'm in no way an expert decorator, and any good results came from time surfing a lot of images during COVID lockdowns. I played with room arranging and decorating...
I'm glad you found it helpful! I'm in no way an expert decorator, and any good results came from time surfing a lot of images during COVID lockdowns. I played with room arranging and decorating software. It's still best to get real samples if you can, and look at them in your space before making color choices.
I don't have any really great photos of what we did, but here's an example of how a badly placed object (an isolated kitchen cabinet) can foreshorten a ceiling, and how we addressed it:
The patio doors brought in too much direct sun and overheated the room in summer, so the panels are light-reducing without eating up the space. We got the whole kit from Wayfair, at a cost of about $120 USD.
In terms of color, my personal inclination is to stick with one palatte of tonally similar neutrals as a background, and contrasting brights. We had neutral brown flooring and leftover gray curtains and couch, so we leaned into blues, beiges, and grays, like this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tD7Jiz5Bq54rLrhw7. There's no shot of the artwork, but that's where the action is happening. Texture is useful too, and I'll admit I was influenced by "Japandi" styling elements in trying to make miscellaneous furniture acquisitions feel cohesive. You can accomplish a great deal given time, careful choices, moderate handiness, and not a scary amount of money.
IKEA does a fantastic job of room staging - it's worth mindfully walking around their stores to get a sense of how furnishings and decor are proportioned and placed in spaces of varying sizes, the psychological impact of color and light, etc.
Look for accessories that speak to you, Pillows, throws, knick knacks, etc. Paint the walls something that you love. Turn that crazysauce of a wall into a gallery wall. And yes, color, color and...
Look for accessories that speak to you, Pillows, throws, knick knacks, etc. Paint the walls something that you love. Turn that crazysauce of a wall into a gallery wall. And yes, color, color and more color.
Nothing wrong with the hodge podge of used furniture. I just tell people it's "Early American Garage Sale". I am no expert, but I think a few bookcases on the wallpaper wall would help break up...
Nothing wrong with the hodge podge of used furniture. I just tell people it's "Early American Garage Sale".
I am no expert, but I think a few bookcases on the wallpaper wall would help break up the pattern and make it less overwhelming.
Not what you asked, but since you said you are broke, see if there are any moms/parents groups for your area on FB. You can often get really nice stuff cheap or free because a lot of people just want to pass things on to another family that can use it.
My radical idea would be to rotate the room so the TV is on a plain wall, and back of the couch touches the wallpaper wall. And then I would think about putting 2-3 bigger but clean, simple...
My radical idea would be to rotate the room so the TV is on a plain wall, and back of the couch touches the wallpaper wall. And then I would think about putting 2-3 bigger but clean, simple pictures on the wallpaper wall, above the couch. So you don't have to stare at that wallpaper.
Also what someone else said, TV should be placed lower and closer to the wall.
Unfortunately we don't have any full sized plain walls. It's moslty open behind this photo other than a plain white section of wall that goes halfway, and off to the right are wide bay windows.
Unfortunately we don't have any full sized plain walls. It's moslty open behind this photo other than a plain white section of wall that goes halfway, and off to the right are wide bay windows.
In addition to de-wallpapering and painting the room, I’d definitely consider putting the tv in the corner between the windows and moving the sectional couch against the windowless wall.
In addition to de-wallpapering and painting the room, I’d definitely consider putting the tv in the corner between the windows and moving the sectional couch against the windowless wall.
How long do you think it'll be before you take down the wallpaper? If you know it will come down sooner rather than later (around a year), I think it would be better to pick something that goes with the furniture and wall color you already have. This'll also possibly prevent another future Walmart return
https://envs.sh/bE0.MP.jpg
Hey everyone,
Wife and I bought a new house and it came with this 3d wallpaper. We don't like the wallpaper but we are so busy and broke right now that it's staying for at least a while.
The floors are a bit rough and we have a baby who is walking and crawling.
Furniture is what it is. A lot of it was hand-me-downs or stuff we got cheap when we were finishing our degrees years ago. Gonna be a while before we replace it because it's all functional and in good condition. Whether we like the look of it or not, it's just smarter to save the money right now.
We are looking for a large area rug and some blackout curtains, but we're having a hell of a time matching anything with this insane wallpaper. I cannot make any more rug returns to target. It's killing me. We've taken back probably 8 now.
Perhaps a couple paintings or art pieces for the plan white wall that's behind (not shown) this photo as well?
Ideas?
I had 12 different varieties of wallpaper in a past house. It had nowhere near 12 rooms, so you can imagine the insanity.
After a maddening attempt to remove it (over 20 years old, and in some areas there was another layer of wallpaper underneath), I realized that with a light sanding it could just be painted over. I also had texture added in one area, but that's definitely optional.
If you're willing to spend 4 hours (including the trip to the hardware store) and ~$50 in materials, it's doable. You can either make it match the current color or make it an accent wall.
I know you mentioned time and money limitations, but you might be spending that already trying to get coordinating rugs, accent pillows, etc.
I feel your pain.
Embrace the madness. Especially with that textured ceiling, you're not gonna get away with boring Millennial Grey. Rather than trying to get things to match, get yourselves some loud rainbow vomit (hides stains well). Pardon the realtor fish-eye, there's my 2020 home. It was a huge living room, those are both full-sized la-z-boy sofas with some pet-savers. This was the "make due with what we have" living room, you can see through to some of the choices we made in the dining room on the other side in the picture.
Get yourselves a different, interesting wall color on the painted wall. Literally anything other than what's there. I know it seems like impossible hell with a baby, but for like $80 and an afternoon + a day of venting you will hate that space 80% less. We never got around to it in this home for similar reasons to you, and regret it. I personally love a dark green or a light blue. We had one space that had a deep forest green which I think would complement your chaos wall and the wood floor.
Plants will certainly help mitigate some of the worst of that wall. The bigger the better.
Grab furniture off the curb as you see it, just make sure to check for bugs and mold. I'd personally go for a brighter natural wood like pine, or maybe a maple. Stay away from black/dark brown furniture.
Get blackout blinds for against the windows, I like Ikea's roll-down. But that frees your curtains to be whatever style you want. I'd suggest something like this.
Wow, you did such a good job tying individual elements together with that distinct palette to build a cohesive look, especially considering it's make-do decorating.
One of the limitations I feel I have when it comes to decorating is I tend to gravitate toward neutrals because they feel like a safer bet to match with other items as I buy/find/adopt furnature over time. But then I just have a room full of neutrals (a little hyperbolic, some of my 'find/adopt' items have brought in colour).
Stop trying to match the wallpaper. Match your furniture instead. A simple gray rug would work well, or you can go with one with texture if you want to try and be a bit more thematic with the wallpaper. Since the gray is a bit drab and you have a nice warm color in your floor and the organizer below the TV, you could also lean into some mixture between something warm and gray.
Speaking as a fellow owner of a late mid-20th Century house with low ceilings, my advice is to think long-term about what will ultimately enhance your psychological comfort with the space.
From what I can see in the photo, you've got minimal natural light available. For where we are, mitigating long periods of winter darkness was a must. But lamps add clutter, and as you can see with the floor lamp, uplighting emphasizes the closeness of the ceiling.
We went with uniformly distributed recessed LED lighting in the ceiling, about one unit per 2 m2, and a couple of wall sconces. Dimmer switches permit the exact light level needed by season. This was part of a major renovation project that included sanding down a popcorn ceiling treatment and semigloss bright white ceiling paint. The ugly thing about textured ceilings is that they seem to accumulate a non-removable film of grime that's just depressing.
The illusion of sourceless bright lighting helps the room feel more spacious and comfortable. You can add small table lamps or task lighting if desired, but again, I'd keep the light pointed downward instead of highlighting the oppressive ceiling.
The biggest problem with the dizzying wallpaper is that its horizontal lines emphasize and visually compress the height of the room. When you remove it, consider some of the options illustrated here (and many other online examples of low-ceilinged room remediations). Notice that the bright vertically striped wallpaper doesn't go the full height from floor to ceiling? Leaving some whitespace around the upper and lower edges also contributes to the feeling of openness.
We had the advantage of dark flooring. That tends to de-enphasize the height of the room, and so a visually arresting rug could definitely help in your case. The trick is not to oversize or undersize it. Leave plenty of space around the edges of the room, but enough area to create an island effect for furniture.
The existing couch and chairs are oversized for the room, but mighty comfortable looking... As much as modern lower-height furniture with open legs would mitigate the impact of the low ceiling, this is a definite trade-off for comfort. Lighter or brighter furniture covers, pillows, and throws can break up the visual bulkiness of the sofa.
Move the curtain rods for windows to near ceiling level, and hang the curtains to floor length. Again, this lifts the visual perception of room height.
If you can, either flush-mount the TV screen or place it on a lower-height TV stand, oriented so it's not leaning into the room. For my admittedly fussy taste, it contributes a sense of crowding and precariousness, though that might be the camera angle.
As others have mentioned, houseplants and bookshelves might help, but those can be problematic with active kids and pets. It's a matter of taste, but I'd lean minimalist and keep the walls light colored with durable paint, adding pops of color at different heights around the room, and keeping plenty of open space around each object.
Hope this helps!
This comment was IMMENSELY helpful in terms of our long term plans to make major changes to the room. After reading some other comments, I think we are going to take down the wallpaper sooner rather than later, but some of what you mentioned will probably be medium to longer-term plans.
Since you seem to have a pretty good handle on interior design and decorating, do you have any advice for rugs and or curtains?
I took about 30 seconds yesterday to do a sloppy hack job Photoshop of a couple ideas I had. I was thinking burnt orange in both the rug and curtains. Maybe some orange and grey wall art to bring it together.
Here is one of my hackjob photoshops to get an idea. The rug will be much bigger in actuality. It'll be 9x12 and will go under the front legs of all the furniture. In addition, the wall will obviously look better when actually painted and will have some wall art to make it look less empty. I'm more curious on your thoughts with my choice of color and style.
https://envs.sh/bEr.jpg
Oh, and the blinds will be coming down. We have white/cream shears we'll be putting up. As you can see, we actually do get quite a bit of natural light from the very wide windows (bay windows, I think they're called?) off to the right. They weren't shown in my first photo.
I'm glad you found it helpful! I'm in no way an expert decorator, and any good results came from time surfing a lot of images during COVID lockdowns. I played with room arranging and decorating software. It's still best to get real samples if you can, and look at them in your space before making color choices.
I don't have any really great photos of what we did, but here's an example of how a badly placed object (an isolated kitchen cabinet) can foreshorten a ceiling, and how we addressed it:
Before: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YecuosGu5SpBdfwR8
After: https://photos.app.goo.gl/yrk62PkxUJUZKfQf9
In another room, we used flat shoji-style tracked panels to cover a patio door while adding subtle verticals: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KKsodQUdSxBXZCud7
The patio doors brought in too much direct sun and overheated the room in summer, so the panels are light-reducing without eating up the space. We got the whole kit from Wayfair, at a cost of about $120 USD.
In terms of color, my personal inclination is to stick with one palatte of tonally similar neutrals as a background, and contrasting brights. We had neutral brown flooring and leftover gray curtains and couch, so we leaned into blues, beiges, and grays, like this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tD7Jiz5Bq54rLrhw7. There's no shot of the artwork, but that's where the action is happening. Texture is useful too, and I'll admit I was influenced by "Japandi" styling elements in trying to make miscellaneous furniture acquisitions feel cohesive. You can accomplish a great deal given time, careful choices, moderate handiness, and not a scary amount of money.
IKEA does a fantastic job of room staging - it's worth mindfully walking around their stores to get a sense of how furnishings and decor are proportioned and placed in spaces of varying sizes, the psychological impact of color and light, etc.
Look for accessories that speak to you, Pillows, throws, knick knacks, etc. Paint the walls something that you love. Turn that crazysauce of a wall into a gallery wall. And yes, color, color and more color.
Nothing wrong with the hodge podge of used furniture. I just tell people it's "Early American Garage Sale".
I am no expert, but I think a few bookcases on the wallpaper wall would help break up the pattern and make it less overwhelming.
Not what you asked, but since you said you are broke, see if there are any moms/parents groups for your area on FB. You can often get really nice stuff cheap or free because a lot of people just want to pass things on to another family that can use it.
My radical idea would be to rotate the room so the TV is on a plain wall, and back of the couch touches the wallpaper wall. And then I would think about putting 2-3 bigger but clean, simple pictures on the wallpaper wall, above the couch. So you don't have to stare at that wallpaper.
Also what someone else said, TV should be placed lower and closer to the wall.
And invest in some plants. Big plants are like a cheatcode in these situations. Stuff like monsterra (https://www.plantsforallseasons.co.uk/cdn/shop/products/110-130cm-monstera-deliciosa-on-mosspole-cheese-plant-24cm-pot-potted-houseplants-111850.jpg?v=1720900827)
Unfortunately we don't have any full sized plain walls. It's moslty open behind this photo other than a plain white section of wall that goes halfway, and off to the right are wide bay windows.
In addition to de-wallpapering and painting the room, I’d definitely consider putting the tv in the corner between the windows and moving the sectional couch against the windowless wall.