"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." Oscar Wilde
My BFF, Michele from England, introduced herself to me by observing that what George Bernard Shaw once said is still true today -- we're 'two countries separated by a common language.' Wilde, the British wallpaper fan, also wrote in The Canterville Ghost (1887): ".....we have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language."
So, I was thinking about wallpaper. Then, I thought about Oscar Wilde and his famous dying words. (As you know, I'm big on thinking :) Then, a new Facebook friend commented that she laughed out loud when she read the wallpaper quote. Then, I went through a former model home for sale across the street from us this weekend -- twice. Then, I thought about wallpaper again. Well, more precisely, I thought about the absence of wallpaper.
Then, I put "wallpaper" into Google. And, what did I get? If you know, then you are probably young enough to be my child. And, we're likely two generations separated by a common language. Say "wallpaper" in a blog, and watch everyone click My Computer -- Control Panel -- Display to review their setting. I still have the AP photo of "The Shot:" Miracle Mario Chalmers hitting the tying three-pointer vs. Memphis to send the NCAA basketball championship final into overtime and the Kansas Jayhawks to the trophy.
Where have all the wallpapers gone? (Girls have picked them every one. When will they ever learn.)
The former model home has not a stitch of wallpaper. Thinking back on the other two former models next door, I can't recall any wallpaper in those either. They were constructed in 2001. So, the marketing weenies at this builder had already given up on wallpaper seven years ago.
I worked on about 60 model homes and two Denver HBA Parade of Homes one-of-a-kind custom homes between 2002 and 2006, and we actually used a little bit of wallpaper here and there. But, we were quite deliberate about it. The walls without wallpaper weren't ignored. They just didn't get paper.
Poor wallpaper. The kind you put on walls. Feels like it got a bad rap. Like most other interior design elements, both good and bad wallpaper examples are sitting out there. Right??
The only critical thing I have to say about my mother-in-law involves wallpaper. She spent a lot of money on it during her almost 78 years of life. Some of it was OK; some of it belonged in the "Why I Hate Wallpaper" how-to about avoiding mind-boggling and life-ending choices. She brought any interest I ever had in wallpaper to a screeching halt with her penchant for finding ways to use every companion border and fabric in the book -- the same color way as well as the reverse color way design. I'm thinking, in particular, of the guest suite. Everything that didn't move on its own in the room was covered in a form of it - bed linens, chairs, sofas, pillows, seat cushions, curtains and valances. You get the idea. It was an enormous and luxuriously appointed room. And, fodder for nightmares of dancing patterns, angles, and rhymes.
Since she's not here to defend herself, I have no other side to that story. But, let's just say that if I had worn a garment made from any of the companion fabric options, all six feet/two inches of me could have pulled a disappearing act of epic proportions.
I'm wondering if EWT -- Early Wallpaper Trauma -- is the root cause of so many broken relationships. Or, once identified, perhaps it could now be channeled for good. "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for richer or poorer, in good wallpaper and in bad...."
If a person with a gift for putting words together really went outta here uttering something about the wallpaper in the room, you gotta believe that was some ugly stuff.
Seems like moving into 21st Century wallpaper could save some marriages. I can click and stick to this one, and nobody ever has to know about it: http://camtech2000.net/Pages/FlyingPigs.html
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