A story of “what’s old is new again.” Wallpaper, the stuff you painstakingly peeled from your walls over the past few decades, is once again cool.
But when it comes to today’s wallcoverings, pastel floral borders, mallard ducks and fake wood paneling are out. What’s in? Graphic patterns, vibrant colors and earthy textures.
“This isn’t their mother’s wallpaper. That’s not what this is. This is artwork,” says Janice Biel, who’s shopping this afternoon at Wallpaper Wallpaper in Wauwatosa.
She’s looking for paper that feels like leather for her son’s bedroom, and for her daughter, something that will go with a sparkly tile. Biel says she’s nearly covered her home in wallpaper.
“When you’re in, say, a bathroom, you can look at the wallpaper and it stimulates your mind. Paint is…paint,” she says.
Mary Peschel and her daughter have run the shop for 30 years, weathering wallpaper’s ups and downs. She says it was all the rage in the 70s and 80s and some 90s, then slowly fell out of favor. Now, with TV shows and magazines featuring modern designs and materials, people are again shopping for wallpaper.
“Something graphic, linear, your basic tones, greys, the neutral tones. But then again, you have a customer that comes in and says I want a paper that’s gonna make me feel happy,” Peschel says.
Peschel says while business has really picked up among homeowners, she’s also seeing more commercial clients. Offices want wallcoverings that help set a mood.
“People feel more relaxed, like even in your executive offices. They’ll want to use color…makes it more conducive, a more relaxed atmosphere,” Peschel says.
The market research firm Freedonia Group says U.S. wallpaper have sales have shot up more than 30 percent since 2010, and will approach a half-billion dollars this year.
“To provide some perspective, that’s coming out of a couple of years that were horrible, so the market is probably still smaller than it was in the heyday,” says Sean Samet, executive director of the Wallcoverings Association in Chicago.
He says the market crashed after the recession, when not many people were remodeling or building. Now that housing’s back, so is wallpaper.
Samet says innovations in digital printing have taken the product to a new level, offering great new colors and patterns. But here’s maybe the best news – modern wallpaper is easier to put up and take down, when we inevitably decide it’s tacky.
