A second cat wall, in a softer key
The second bedroom in this Auburn Bay home took the same idea in a quieter direction: a watercolour botanical where black, ginger, grey-tabby and cream cats curl and stretch between blush peonies and gold roses. The scale is larger and the ground is warm cream, so it sits closer to a traditional botanical than a novelty print – and it has to hold that composure across a wall bounded by a window return on one side and a white closet frame on the other.
- Service
- Wallpaper installation – residential feature wall
- Location
- Auburn Bay, SE Calgary
- Material
- Watercolour botanical cat print, medium-scale repeat on a cream ground
- Scope
- One bedroom feature wall between a window return and the closet opening, over painted drywall
Project challenge
A medium-scale botanical puts whole motifs – a curled cat, an open peony – right at the seam line, so a match that is out by a hair cuts an animal in half in a way the eye finds immediately. This wall also ends against two different conditions: a painted corner beside the window and the closet frame on the opposite side, both of which need a cut that stays parallel to the trim rather than to whatever the drywall is doing.
Our solution
We planned the drop layout so the seams fall between motifs wherever the repeat allowed, and hung to a struck plumb line so the pattern stayed true across the run instead of following the corner. Cuts at the closet frame and the window return were trimmed tight and parallel to the trim line, and the base was run straight into the white baseboard so the paper reads as a panel of art rather than a covering that was fitted around obstacles.
Where the paper meets the trim – and the repeat up close
Two things decide whether a botanical looks bought or installed: how it terminates at trim, and whether the repeat survives the seams.
Surface review
Painted drywall prepared so the cream ground stayed even – light-ground botanicals telegraph anything left proud of the surface underneath.
Installation focus
Seam placement planned between motifs, plumb-line start, and trim cuts held parallel to the closet frame and window return rather than to the drywall.
Result
A grown-up botanical that still belongs to a cat lover – and a second finished room in the same house, each with its own pattern.
Two rooms, two patterns, one house
This home took a bolder small-scale print in one bedroom and this softer botanical in the other – see the companion project, the cat and floral kids room feature wall, and our installation standards for the seam quality behind both.
Related services
From botanicals to murals and grasscloth – see how we plan patterns around trim, closets and windows.
Planning a feature wall in Calgary? Send photos of the room and the pattern you are considering – we will flag the layout risks and quote it from the photos.