How to do an “embedded wallpaper” decorative finish.

I had a client recently who has spent some time in the south of France and just fell in love.  She was wanting to incorporate that romantic feel into her dining room.  Her dining room had an open concept into her stairway so we knew we needed to finish the entire area.    Also, with the walls being so expansive, she knew she wanted to add another decorative element to the walls.  After looking over my samples, she settled on an “embedded” finish I had done.  An “embedded” finish basically means “under plaster”.  The premise is for it to look like the plaster finish has came off in a certain area and revealed the design underneath.  You can create this look with hand paintings, canvases, brick, photos, or in this case, wallpaper.  We went through a couple different looks, but settled on this wallpaper we found online.

First you need to determine where you want your embedding to be at.  Upper corners of walls and corners of doorways are good places.  I try and think of where plaster would naturally crack.  We then penciled out the area and applied a layer of drywall mud to create an edge around the area where the embedding will be.  We then applied the paper to the inside surface.  And then added more of our decorative plaster overtop the paper in “strategic” areas so the wallpaper becomes somewhat of a backdrop.  

I made a video showing how I applied the wallpaper.  You can find the video here. 

The entire surface is then antiqued to bring the entire finish together.  Here is more photos of the completed finish. I will be doing additional blog posts on how I achieved the fabulous background wall finish you see in future posts so stay tuned!