The fun design trend guaranteed to give you instant gratification

Everyone loves instant gratification, and adding wall coverings in super luxury homes is one way to get it.

“From subtle and textural grasscloths (natural fibres with a paper backing) to beautiful, hand-painted papers, clients are looking for more visual interest and excitement and wallpapers are a great way to achieve this,” says interior designer Thomas Hamel.

“We find wallpapers are the perfect way of adding ‘instant gratification’ to a home, especially newly-built places, which are all fairly harsh white walls.

“There has also been a fun trend towards wallpapering ceilings to add immediate interest and detail to a usually forgotten surface.”

With more clients requesting wallpapers or wall coverings, style experts predict the stature and importance of wallpaper will continue to rise in 2024.

Even minimalists will be swayed by the appeal of pattern and texture, they suggest.

“Wallpaper is a classic feature of a luxury home. If you have stunning wallpaper, you don’t need art,” says Glenys Pitkin of Ray White Sanctuary Cove.

Rooms without art can accommodate larger pattern wallpapers. “For rooms that will eventually have art, we typically suggest more textual or simple, coloured wallpapers,” adds Hamel.

In line with the overarching trend towards artisan pieces and customised design in luxury homes, Hamel’s firm works closely with British hand-painted wallpaper specialists de Gournay.

“They really are the top of their class,” he says.

Hand-painted garden scenes based on historic wallpapers from European houses, block-painted panoramic wallpapers in a style popular in early 19th-century France and even wallpapers that are embroidered and gilded are all produced by the UK luxury design firm.

“Other wallpapers we regularly use are from US-based Phillip Jeffries, who has every type of wallpaper imaginable,” says Hamel. “We are great fans of their vinyl versions of silk and grass cloth.”

For bespoke wallpapers of a textural nature Gregorius Pineo – an LA-based company that creates stunning plaster finishes as wallpaper – is the go-to.

For home owners thinking of elevating a room with wallpaper or wall coverings, Hamel says there really are no rules when it comes to adding interest.

“We have leather upholstered the walls in a dining room for a rich, warm feel and, for a private dressing room in Sydney, we used faux-leather quilted panels in the cabinetry. It broke up the rather blank surface.”

SOLD - $11,000,000

5681 Anchorage Terrace, Sanctuary Cove QLD 4212

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