Your room is a smooth white box. You have some nice furniture, but no fireplace, no interest of any type besides a window. Or maybe your room is nice enough, but the walls are cracked and old.

Or maybe you’re just sick of the same old painted orange peel wall finish and popcorn ceilings.

Doesn’t matter, to create a unique focal feature or a stunning backdrop, texture is an easy way to make it happen. Need to fix uneven walls? Add dimension and depth? Create an elegant historical atmosphere without the cost of an elaborate plaster job? Or simply make an ordinary house more rustic and warm?

Easy ways to apply dimensional texture to your own walls include paintable embossed wallpaper and borders. 

You also get a vocabulary lesson. “Lincrusta” and “anaglypta” are words describing traditionally produced embossed wallpapers, “friezes” (a really thick wallpaper border at the top of a wall, see image below) and “dados” which refers to the lower part of a wall, when decorated, between the wall base and another trim piece such as a chair rail. It's like a wainscot, but not wood.

Lincrusta and anaglypta are quite similar in appearance. Lincrusta, is heavily textured and traditionally made from linseed oil, sawdust, and other materials including sometimes dye. Anaglypta is lighter, more flexible and made of cotton and recycled paper. 

Modern, inexpensive paintable embossed wallpapers are made of vinyl.

All of these products are applied like wallpaper, some are prepasted, some not. You won’t need to paint the vinyl products, but you’d miss a great decorating opportunity if you don’t. Lincrusta and anaglypta need to be primed and painted for durability, since they are unfinished.

While there are other fun ways to add wall texture, such as plaster, faux painting and wallpaper, lincrusta and anaglypta products add a rich dimensionality to a wall that flat finishes will never match.

Until next time!

--Elaine Bothe

For more information and some history about lincrusta and anaglypta products, click here and here.

To purchase, go to www.wallpapersplus.com. Photos are courtesy of them as well.

www.urbanrevivals.com also sells these products.