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People have been decorating their walls with paper for millennia. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese were the first to hang paper on their walls two thousand years ago, King Louis XI of France (1423-1483) commissioned Jean Bourdichon to paint 50 rolls of paper with images of angels because he found it necessary to move frequently from castle to castle and wanted to take the “wallpaper” with him, and the UK`s love of flock wall coverings developed after Henry VIII´s excommunication from the Catholic Church in Rome and the English gentry could no longer get tapestries imported from Europe.
These days, it seems that there is practically nothing you cannot do with wallpaper. They can be manufactured from many different materials – textile wallpapers include silks, linens, grass cloths, strings, rattan, and actual impressed leaves -, can be printed with life-size images or photographs and you can submit your own design if there is nothing suitable to choose from in the shop or online! Wallpaper can be printed in the style of a mosaic (see below) or as if the wall was bare brick and there was no wallpaper at all. There is even a charity in the UK promoting “wallpaper awareness” with examples of wallpaper designs over the last six centuries (for more information visit – Wallpaper History Society).
This really is wallpaper printed in the form of a mosiac
Whether you are looking for wallpaper that is modern or retro, Arabesque or Anglo-Japanese, geometric or neo-classical, the video below may offer some inspiration to you. Created with the assistance of the Cooper-Hewett National Design Museum in New York, it goes through three hundred years of wallpaper designs in a little over three minutes. Once you have chosen your particular favourite, you might then wish to use the services of a local handyman in London to help you hang it. In which case you will find our Tradesmen´s Directory an invaluable resource to help attract competitive quotes from handymen in London.