1960s wallpaper whizz-ardry (1966)
Article by Margaret White, American Home magazine – August 1966
Be a wallpaper whizz-ard. Fresh patterns on the wall — even more than fresh paint — works bigger decorating wonders than almost anything else you can do.
And the wonders are worked in a flash when you use the new pre-pasted, pre-trimmed papers. They’re easy to work with: just snip off a length, dip in water, and hang. They’re inexpensive (ours range from $2.50 to $3.50 roll) and you can forget about paperhangers.
And they’re available in marvelous, never-before designs that do fabulous things to a room. Or part of a room. They even help put wasted space to work — a spare closet becomes a powder room, for example, or that cranny under the stairs, a telephone corner.
A folding screen
A quiet, out-of-the-way corner, perfect for games, bridge and hours/long jigsaw puzzles, is created with the help of a wooden folding screen that defines and partially closes off a section of the living room.
The screen is covered with a mural wallpaper in a fresh, airy pattern, wonderfully in keeping with the pale wood tones and beiges of the walls and sofa and the overall sunny feeling of the room. The floors are highly polished parquet in an intricate design that is much too beautiful to cover.
The wallpaper pattern: “Birds and Bamboo,” a Sunworthy mural made by the Canadian Wallpaper Manufacturing Company.
ALSO SEE: Crazy, colorful retro kitchens from the ’60s, with bright & bold decorator appliances
Mid-century wallpapers: Flowers in the attic
Below: Unfinished attic becomes a private, flower/strewn haven for a teen/aged girl, with painted floor, fake four-poster rug, four-poster bed (each poster, two two-by-fours), pink and blue daisies everywhere.
Desk, counter, base of bed are raspberry Formica. Spread, hanging, skylight shade are 36finch glazed Chintz to match wallpaper-both, Daisy Dell by The Birge Company.
MORE: How to wallpaper a ceiling, plus 12 colorful examples of this retro ’70s home decor trend
Vintage mid-century wallpapers from the sixties
All of these samples are from the 1963 “Fashions Of Today” wallpaper book from Gamble Stores
Retro tips: Choosing wallpaper? Careful selection important (1963)
By William Pahlmann, Fellow, American Institute of Interior Designers
A beautiful design on a fine wallpaper can lose its charm and effectiveness if it is not properly used. Wallpaper is always an outstanding motif in a room. It can set the style, period, atmosphere and establish the color scheme.
Since it’s a compelling factor, never choose a paper which takes over a room and does not lend itself to the other furnishings. Dominating wallpaper can be with you for years. Labor and installation costs are not cheap.
Styles in wallpaper are apt to change faster than styles in other furnishings, so an eccentric design may look out of date or pall on you long before you can change it. Don’t choose anything too exotic or flamboyant unless you can afford to change it every five years.
Mid-century wallpaper: Some on-trend wallcovering choices
The size and species of pattern should be appropriate to the size and nature of the room. If you have a large, formal living room, you can accommodate a large formal pattern. Other elements in the room should be chosen to enhance, and not compete with, such a wallpaper.
If you use a big floral, for instance, choose a plain-colored fabric and use plain rugs. A floral chintz and a flowered carpet would be too much unless you want a busy effect. Furniture should be in keeping. Casual or provincial styles of furniture look embarrassed against a formal wallpaper.
ALSO SEE: 60 vintage ’60s bathrooms: Retro home decorating ideas
Mid-century wallpaper: Scenic patterns & prints
Scenic wallpapers must be chosen with considerable care and assigned to the right place. Scenic wallpapers are most successful in rooms where drama can be accommodated.
Dining rooms or living-dining areas lend themselves to this style, as a scenic paper may open up a vista as perspective deepens space. A big scenic wall in a bedroom could keep you awake.
Florals and small geometric patterns are satisfactory for bedrooms. If you like stripes, choose muted colors. Blaring stripes are not reposeful.
Small rooms, oddly-shaped bedrooms, or rooms in which eaves, set-in windows, gables or other architectural problems are present, benefit by having the same paper on walls and ceilings. In an all-over paper job, be sure and choose a non-directional pattern. (Non-directional means that the paper looks alike from every standpoint.)
Don’t try to use landscape, grilles, trellises or any other pattern which looks upside down on the ceiling. The all-over treatment is also good for other small areas such as halls or foyers, or for bathrooms or kitchens.
MORE: Walls with a fashion future! Vintage wallpaper samples from 1940
There are many charming wallpaper designs suitable to kitchens, but my advice is to avoid anything coy. You probably spend a lot of time in this room, and you may get very tired of whimsical teapots.
Wallpaper is intensely personal, and if your children are old enough to be consulted, don’t fail to let them have a voice in choosing paper for their own rooms.
The most important consideration in choosing wallpaper is appropriateness to the persons and the places. Always try to obtain a large sample, as patterns can be deceptive.
Black and white vintage wallpaper
Black and white and pattern all over changes a small catch-all room into a pretty guest or sewing room. Wallpaper is a feminine Victorian pine on a ticking background; curtains are charcoal and white mattress ticking; wood floor is painted charcoal, spattered with white.
Window-seat niche is created by two built-in cupboards — one, with door, the other, doorless and fitted with paper-covered boxes for sewing gear. Window seat, 30 inches deep, doubles as bed, has storage underneath.
Lemon-yellow chair, table, mirror, stand (reminiscent of old wicker porch furniture) add cheering accents. Paper: #11304, the “PDQ” collection, by United Wallpaper Co.
Wallpaper border for a powder room
There’s wallpaper “whizzardry” here in the way an Early American border print, used four different ways, helps turn a spare closet into a strikingly attractive powder room.
The whole border print trims the chopping/block counter. Strips of the print, cut to utilize the different design motifs, decorate the walls and folding window screen, which is made of lengths of 3/4-inch plywood.
Walls are pine boards painted a toasty golden brown. The flooring is delft blue vinyl tile by Amtico, which has been hexagonally cut and beveled. Wallpaper: #B9811, from the “Fun With Borders” collection, by the United Wallpaper Co.
ALSO SEE: 140+ vintage 1950s wallpaper samples for some real retro decor inspiration
3 Responses
“Groovy”?? Not in 1963. 1963 was still mid-century, and I Love Lucy was still a thing, TV was black and white, Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” was released. Think Gidget, bouffant hair-dos, and “What’s My Line” on TV. In NO wise was anything groovy in 1963!
My grandparent’s house on Crest View Drive in Hollywood Hills was built, and they had wallpaper on a lot of walls, but none of these. What really was popular were classic, upper-class luxury like rococo, gilt and pale blue floor to ceiling draperies, grand piano and white wrought iron patio furniture. That was my grandparents house, and it was furnished like that when they had it built, and to the day they passed, and it never, ever was out of style. They passed away, and against my precious wish the house was sold and a young couple bought the place and completely destroyed the interior- even removing the priceless Italian marble foyer. Young and stupid with too much money.
Hi, and thank you so much for the comment! That is a huge shame about your grandparents’ house. (Especially removing the grand foyer!) Sadly, the process of remodeling and destroying the heritage and the history of a home has undoubtedly been done thousands of times. :-( Heartbreaking.
As for the term groovy, I researched it again just now, and confirmed that it was indeed in use in 1963. (In fact, it was not hard to find it in 1950, too — for one instance, the old comic strip “Curly Cayoe.”) The word was not particularly popular until a few years later, but it certainly was a known expression — and I thought it fit the feel of some of the more bold floral wallpaper styles shown, like those orange and yellow daisies.
That said, there were definitely a lot of the more traditional styles in that sample book as well. I can only fit so many descriptors into an article title, so had to make a judgment call based on what I felt would both describe the content and capture a reader’s attention.
You also mentioned the classic upper-class color schemes, which I am sure looked elegant and timeless in their home. However, I only have access to a limited number of materials, and don’t currently have other wallpaper catalogs from the era that would more thoroughly document the interior design styles of the mid-’60s. I try my best to include as many insights as possible, though — whether through ads or catalogs or recipes or photos from decades past.
Thank you so much for visiting the site, and for taking the time to not just offer feedback, but to share some of your family’s history.
Hi and thank you for this great article! Unlike the previous commenter, my family was working class, not Hollywood upper class, and so we DEFINITELY had some of these “groovier” wallpaper styles up on the walls of our Oakland, California home. And I do remember my older brother using the term “groovy” for sure. His room, in fact, was covered in op-art black and white wallpaper. And we also had a downstairs bathroom that had shiny metallic purple wallpaper with naked cherubs shooting arrows out of their bow and arrows. So classy lol. I assume that an upscale home in Hollywood would have classic timeless style. Whereas my family, with teenagers and kids, was ok with throwing some trendier styles up on the wall. Especially since, in those days, as you stated in your webpage, these were advertised as peel and style – Easy to put on and easy to remove :)