I live in a loft in Brooklyn, a recent transplant to Greenpoint (love my neighborhood!). I work as a freelance writer, blogger, stylist, gilder, and crafter. I curate a daily personal lifestyle blog called the Haystack Needle (http://www.thehaystackneedleonline.com). I'm also one half of the shop Cabin 7 (http://www.shopcabin7.com) — a collection of gilded objects for the home. I started out in magazines, working in the home department of Real Simple magazine and later worked as the home editor of Redbook. I love to scout cool finds for the home — everything from an amazing loveseat to a green laundry detergent that really works. I'm a new mama to our baby girl, Juniper, who amazes me every day with her curiosity for life and big smiles.
I live in a loft in Brooklyn, a recent transplant to Greenpoint (love my... More »
This is a peek inside the bathroom of my favorite Brooklyn shop, Caribou Baby. I wish every diaper change of my baby girl could happen in this pretty space. Obviously, the wall pattern is the look I most want to steal. But I was so surprised to find out its origin.
Expecting to hear this pattern is from some new cool wallpaper line (which all seem to run $125 a roll), I was stunned to hear the walls of this bathroom are covered in none other than IKEA fabric.
Read on for more details of this bathroom makeover, and I'll share some rooms with a similar wallpaper style (that are probably on the pricier side of cool).
Designed by Kristen Reifsteck, the bathroom inside Brooklyn shop Caribou Baby features IKEA fabric mounted on the walls with a homemade paste.
Paired with a vintage black pendant light and wood accents, the bathroom has a perfectly rustic modern style that also feels happy.
Tip: If you're looking to makeover the space by your baby's changing table, patterns and colors definitely attract babies (and help distract their attention while you're doing a diaper change.)
Birds of a feather flock together. This wallpaper pattern reminds me of the fabric on the walls in the Caribou Baby bathroom. The big difference is this wallpaper is just black and white.
How do you actually apply fabric as a wall covering? Do you know what the 'homemade paste' is? I presume that it would be more difficult than wall paper to apply and harder to keep clean...
Fabric walls in a baby changing area sounds like the worst idea of all time. Is there some kind of coating on top of the fabric so that you can clean it?
The birds on trees wall paper comes from Cavern. We have it in the lobby of our boutique hotel in Istanbul (had to ship from the US) on one wall and it is fabulous.
When I was in college, I used fabric as wall paper to bring some color into the room. All I used was liquid starch and sponged it on. At the end of the year I just peeled it off and wiped down the walls of any excess starch. Super easy and much more affordable than wallpaper! (well, depending on the what fabric you use!)
scaplan: The fabric was sealed with some kind of paste — it's not bare fabric. I've never seen the walls look dirty at all, either. And there are a ton of kids that move through that changing station each day! I can understand the concern though with fabric mixing with poopy diapers. You do need to create a sealant for the fabric.
Here is our Birds and Birch pattern. It's available in black and white and 11 additional color ways. It doesn't require glue or paste, it's cleanable with soap and water (perfect for a baby changing area!) It's repositionable, removable without leaving a residue and reusable.
I am the designer of Caribou, thought I would just comment a little about putting up this fabric. We actually did this ourselves (me, the owner, a few friends) over a few days time. Each step didn't take long, but you had to let each layer dry before moving onto the next step.
The "paste" is just elmer's glue and water, about 1/4 glue and 3/4 water, I just put the fabric in a bucket and got the whole thing wet and used a wallpaper smoothing brush and wallpaper tool (which is just a piece of plastic that you smooth out the paper, or in this case, fabric, with) I trimmed off the excess fabric with a rolling fabric cutter. We then coated it with several layers of a VOC free poly, used this product from AFM Safecoat: http://www.ecohaus.com/C-721/polyureseal+bp. to keep it from getting dirty and make it wipe-able. I used a brush to apply it so that it would really penetrate the fabric.
I will say that this was not the easiest project. I have done it before in small amounts, but sort of made this method up, as I wanted it to be really durable. Were I to do it again I would use clear elmers (I just used the regular old white, but it left some streaks) or a spray mount. Getting the whole length of fabric wet, made for a bit of a messy install, and would probably opt for using wallpaper paste rolled directly on to wall and then brushing the elmers and water mixture over the top of the fabric as I smoothed it down. It is also hard to pattern match with fabric, but just takes patience (and some help with the longer pieces) The edges frayed a little where I had to cut the fabric so I put wood trim over it (though you could also use fabric robe or ribbon and a hot glue gun)
