Guest Blogger: How To Choose a Creative Border for Your Wallpaper

Guest Blog #226, Entry #723, October 25, 2011

Wallpaper borders are sold in literally any style and size imaginable, and can be used to add that little something to a room. There are many ways to use the border for your benefit, some of the main ones are listed below, and how it can work with existing rooms.

Wallpaper border – pay attention the size…

Image via: Blue Host

The Size of the Border Counts:

In my opinion, the size of the wallpaper border makes a huge difference in its application and feels. A smaller border is limited to simply being an accent around windows or picture frames. I had a small roll of wallpaper border, probably about 3 inches wide, that I used to accent the room, in the end, it just ended up looking cheap and gaudy, since I had chosen such a lush wallpaper as a main color, and the accent was really small.

I’d say, that unless your wallpaper has a very complicated texture or design, I would aim for a width of at least 4-6 inches for a wallpaper border. It has the same effect as knobs on your kitchen cabinets. How does it feel to have large cabinets in a nice wood, and the knob is just small and plain. Sometimes, the accessory really can make the look.

Something to quickly note here is that some people like to use wallpaper borders as a molding of some kind near the ceiling. I’ve never done this, but from a size perspective, it is imperative to remember is when looking up at a border from below, the border will look smaller. This is just an illusion created by perspective, but respecting this principle is necessary. If you have a standard sized room, id aim for a border that is at least 6 inches to account for this “shrinking.”

Location of the Line:

In my experimentation with wallpaper and borders, I’ve had the fortune to work in rooms that are smaller, and rooms that have higher ceilings. From what I gathered through trial and error, there’s the concept of “the line” that I feel is really one of the key things to consider with a border.

This was actually brought to my attention by a friend of mine who is an art teacher for the public high school. He walked into my foyer, which has vaulted ceilings around the 14-foot mark, and I had put an 8-inch wide border near the ceiling to act as molding. The first thing he noticed was the line that the bottom of the border produced. He told me I should try putting the border not against the ceiling, but about 4 feet down from the top of the wall, to create a line around the 10-foot mark. He offered and ended up helping me the next day to get it done in a little under an hour. The results were awesome!

Making that line at the 10-foot mark took the huge foyer and made it come back down to human proportion. Many people like the foyer to be a huge entrance, but since most of my house has 9.5-foot ceilings, it was disorienting to come into a huge foyer and then feel cramped in the shorter house. Putting the line at 10 feet made the house seem more uniform, and took the awkwardness out of the entry.

Another place I used the line was in my dining room. I wanted the room to have red in it, to promote warmth, but I didn’t want to make the room seem small by using a dark color all over. All I had to do was run a border at table height around the room. Now I could have a rich red at the bottom, and an airy color on top of it.

Helpful tips to help you hang a wallpaper border

Image via: House to Home

Move The Eyes:

I mentioned this before, but utilizing people’s eyes to get everything out of a room is important. Multiple times I’ve mentioned the use of borders as a cheap way to add molding to a room to bring their eyes up.
When you research interior design, and you surf through the relevant web pages, you will see a lot of sites talking about “design elements.” These are the basic building blocks of design. One of those building blocks is helping your visitors see the entire room, or to focus on certain elements.
The line created by a wallpaper border is a pretty big draw for the eye, so if you want people to look upward and appreciate the size of the room, putting that line higher on the ceiling is best. If you want the room to seem small and cozy, then you can put the line much lower, around waist height, to keep people’s eyes lower in the room.

Using Patterns:

Using the line from a border can be the start of some creative coloring to the room. Having a part of the wall be paint while the other is wallpaper is a cheap and really great way to make your room seem different. I’ve used this technique to use a darker, more comfortable color closer to the ground with a lighter color on top, to make the room cozy without sacrificing height.
I have never tried to mix patterns before, but if I were to attempt it I would stick with a couple of simple rules. Don’t put two very complicated patterns next to one another, or use two bright colors next to one another. I have no experience with the size of patterns, but from what I researched it seemed that if you combine many small patterns it makes the room very busy and intense.
Pete Wise is a content developer and white-hat SEO Jedi. This article was written for Discount Decorating Online who sell deeply discounted wallpaper and wallpaper borders. Follow Pete on twitter: @MySEOHeadache  Connect with me on My Google+ Profile

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